Denmark is still doing nothing to regulate revolving door lobbying among ministers. This is according to the annual report on legal certainty in EU countries, which the EU Commission presented on Tuesday. The term revolving door lobbying covers ministers changing jobs to the private sector. The criticism is that it can lead to conflicts of interest.
Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (S) said at a press conference that she does not believe that this is something that Denmark has major challenges with.
- I do not think that we generally have many challenges in Denmark in this regard.
Mette Frederiksen emphasized on Tuesday that at the time of her statements she had not yet seen the report's conclusions.
- I know that there are some of my colleagues who go out and do other work on the side. But as I see it, they do it in a good and wise way, said Mette Frederiksen.
The EU Commission concludes that Denmark is not doing enough to regulate lobbying either. In addition, Denmark does not conduct sufficient control over the financial declarations that top officials must submit, it says.
Was pointed out already in 2024
The problem of revolving door lobbying was already highlighted in the 2024 edition of the EU Commission's report. In 2024, it was stated that in the past 15 years, Danish ministers had changed their jobs for work in the private sector almost seven times a year.
This year, the EU Commission concludes that Denmark has not made progress in this area. Furthermore, the Danish government has no plans to do anything about it.
- The Danish authorities continue to believe that the current system works well, but at the same time confirm that there is no specific monitoring mechanism in place, the report says.
The EU Commission's proposal states that the government should introduce rules for this, but does not specify which ones. A proposal that has previously been debated is to introduce a cooling-off period - that is, a period during which ministers are not allowed to take up private positions that could lead to conflicts of interest.
The report also concludes that there are no rules for integrity for Danish parliamentarians. Here, the commission notes that there is no code of conduct and a system is missing to register parliamentarians' external activities and financial interests.
/ritzau/
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