Parliament presents registration platform for lobby entities

O Parliament presented today the Platform for the Transparency Register of the Representation of Interests, designed and executed by the services of the Assembly of the Republic, which is intended to be simple and objective completion by the entities dedicated to the lobby.

The session was promoted by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, and was coordinated by Pedro Delgado Alves (PS) and António Rodrigues (PSD), and filled the auditorium António Almeida Santos. In the audience were former politicians, dozens of representatives of communication agencies, consulting companies, insurance companies and banking companies, as well as managers of various associations.

Before this audience, the vice president of the PSD bench António Rodrigues noted that the high adherence that had the public session “shows and clearly illustrates the interest that this matter of representation of interests has taken”.

“ One issue we took as a legislative priority in this legislature, which began about a year and a half ago and which somehow concluded a legislative process that had been postponed for almost decades,” said António Rodrigues.

In the middle of the session, in response to questions from representatives of companies and associations, the “vice” of the Socialist bench Pedro Delgado Alves argued that Parliament, in the construction of the Transparency Registration Platform of the Representation of Interests (RTPI), “was determined to make it as simple and practical as possible”.

“Of course we know that we will have many doubts later in the practical application, but the idea is to be a decomplicator”, he stressed.

The platform results from the approval of lobby law, or representation of interests, in the past legislative session. It is now moving forward following the adoption of its regulation in plenary, which happened last month.

The Assembly of the Republic will still elect, probably this month, the platform management board, which will come into operation on January 1 and which contains a procedure for the registration of the different entities, with various fields, and will also have a field of research for citizens.

For the services of the Assembly of the Republic, Ricardo Costa Santos said that “the system will allow the registration and updating of data” of companies or associations, “based on the information contained in the law and follow its entire life cycle.”.

“ In other words, after registration of the entity on this platform, changes will be possible throughout the life of that entity, including those responsible or customers who may need to be updated. Institutional validation will be done by the management board ", said.

As far as authentication is concerned, Parliament ensures that it will be ‘high’, having been ‘validated by the cybersecurity system to ensure that no one can get in improperly’.

Pedro Delgado Alves pointed out that the documents needed for identification will belong “to the entity and not to the person who is filling in”. A criterion that is intended to “ensure that no curious person is registered, for example, on behalf of the Utentes Commission of the Barreiro Hospital, when it does not belong to the same committee”.

The vice president of the PS bench also clarified that the registration information will be available for consultation through the platform, but will not register interactions.

“ The data that are not published, including the submitted documentation, follows all safeguards for the protection of personal data and of Parliament’s own personal data security policy,” he said.

According to Pedro Delgado Alves, in the registration of each hearing – which will belong to another regulation not yet published – the date of the hearing, the entity requesting it, the summary object and the person who integrated the delegation that was present on both sides should appear.

“ That is, who is accompanying and who was the person who was on the side of the delegation of the entity that requested the hearing and who on the side of Parliament, as the parliamentary group, the President of the Assembly, the services, who was on the other side,” he explained.

Contrary to what is happening in the European Union, the Portuguese regime does not require that individuals who are only working (with a subordinate relationship or other) with the registered entity must be previously registered as such.

“Your publicity will arise in the interaction at the audience,” he added.