German Lawmakers Uneasy About Stricter Anti-Corruption Laws

Most countries have already banned their parliamentarians from accepting kickbacks in exchange for votes. Members of Germany’s Bundestag, however, only get in trouble if they receive so-called “thank you gifts” before casting their vote. Remuneration after the fact, known as a “you’re welcome gift,” is not considered a crime.

The signing of the United Nations document, which also aims to improve the prevention of cross-border corruption such as the Elf Aquitaine scandal, puts pressure on Germany to fix this loophole.

Germany’s justice ministry, headed by Brigitte Zypries (photo), agrees that this needs to happen. The U.N. convention, which took three years to hammer out, will have to be ratified by at least 30 countries before entering into force. It has been described as a milestone for global efforts to combat graft and will be signed by government representatives during a three-day U.N. conference that starts on Tuesday in Merida, Mexico.

But German parliamentarians, who will ultimately have to vote on changing the law, disagree on whether such a step will help to clamp down on corruption.

Too difficult to prosecute corruption?

“We need a clearer separation between corruption among parliamentarians and their legal representation of interests,” Klaus Uwe Benneter, a Social Democratic member of parliament who sits on the legal affairs committee, told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper.

Norbert Geis, the opposition Christian Social Union’s spokesman on legal affairs, countered that it would be hard to prosecute corruption in parliament. Some of his conservative colleagues agreed.

A stricter law on combating corruption would lead to more investigations but not more convictions, Eckart von Klaeden of the Christian Democratic Union’s parliamentary leadership told the Berliner Zeitung.

Even under current law, no German parliamentarian has been prosecuted for corruption. In its 2003 Corruption Perception Index, Transparency International, a non-governmental organization that monitors worldwide corruption, ranked Germany in 16th place, behind Singapore and Hong Kong.

Parliamentarians’ side jobs criticized

While calling upon German parliamentarians to get tougher on themselves, Transparency International also criticized the number of side jobs many lawmakers have here. Moonlighting “could lead to political dependencies which eventually affect the parliamentarian’s decision-making process,” Dagmar Schröder, executive director of the organization's German chapter, told the Stuttgarter Nachrichten newspaper.

In the U.S., members of the House of Representatives are banned from any side jobs, including such things as serving on company advisory boards. Germany’s members of parliament on the other hand are only required to make public such sources of extra income.

Moonlighting parliamentarians more independent?

Some of the Bundestag’s biggest moonlighters disagreed with Schröder’s assessment. Günter Rexrodt, a former minister of economics and member of the opposition Free Liberal Democrats, said he saw nothing wrong with lawmakers earning some extra money on the side. “It’s a good thing if parliamentarians are in touch with life,” Rexrodt told the Berliner Zeitung. He added that parliamentarians with side jobs were much more relaxed and more independent.

Just last week, a Green Party member of parliament resigned from her positions as advisory board member with several insurance companies after her own party colleagues criticized her for it. But Cornelia Scheel, who heads the parliament’s finance committee, said she did nothing wrong and only resigned from the boards because she was tired of having to deal with the mounting criticism.