Home affairs minister Judith Uitermark has torn up plans to introduce a lobby register in the Netherlands to record which companies and other organisations have access to ministers and the decision-making process. Most EU countries have such a register, but the Netherlands has been dithering about the subject for years.

Uitermark, an MP for the “good governance” party NSC, said instead the cabinet wants to make better use of ministers’ public diaries to track potential lobbying activities. The cabinet, she told MPs in a briefing, considers it would be a disproportionate measure to introduce a formal register.

Ministers are supposed to register meetings in their public diaries to prevent any conflicts of interest from taking place, although research shows many do not.

And a second report drawn up for Uitermark last year said that ministers’ diaries are not being kept properly, and many meetings were not properly registered or not included at all.

Transparency campaigners say they are “shocked” at the sudden decision. The EU transparency watchdog Greco has also called for better registration of meetings and the development of a lobby register in the Netherlands.

The coalition agreement between the four parties also pledged to implement the Greco recommendations on ensuring ministerial integrity.

Uitermark has also rejected calls for a register of meetings between senior civil servants and lobby groups, saying this would be unnecessary because of the civil service code of conduct.

The NSC u-turn is all the more remarkable because in 2022 party leader Pieter Omtzigt was involved in drawing up draft legislation calling for a lobby register.

Lousewies van der Laan, director of Transparency International Netherlands, said in reaction that the campaign for change is not over.

“A lobbying register is the way to provide insight into who is influencing policy,” she said. “It is not a question of if but when a lobby register will be introduced. That this cabinet refuses to do so is disappointing, especially given NSC explicitly promised before the elections to make politics more transparent.”