The President of Latvia admitted that the debate at the Saeima that had taken place on Thursday on amendments to the Law on Credit Institutions clearly showed that the manner of decision-making was very essential. Both the quality of decisions made and whether the public will trust in those decisions depend on that.
“Transparency must not remain at the level of titles and slogans. It can reach its goal most efficiently if everyone is able to track the progress of decision-making, if there is simple and easy opportunity to be acquainted with the arguments in the basis of decision-making, and what considerations were made for one or the other solution. It is crucial that everyone has access to information on interest groups that have participated in the decision-making,” added the President of Latvia.
At the discussion organised by the Commission of Legal Environment Improvement established by President of Latvia Raimonds Vējonis, which took place in the Riga Castle on Friday, 9 June 2017, they sought answers to the questions such as what challenges associated with legitimate footprint of lobbyists existed and what goals could be achieved through regulatory framework of lobbying.
Chairperson of the Commission of Legal Environment Improvement Aivars Endziņš provided an insight into the discussions on lobbying regulation and current events ongoing in Latvia for the past decade. In his turn, Policy Analyst at the Parliamentary Research Service of the European Parliament, Professor Gianluca Sgueo presented the evolution and future challenges of the regulatory framework of lobbying in the European Union. G.Sgueo outlined that the decision-makers and the public were interested in creating a system that showed how decisions were actually made. Therefore, the more transparent the decision-making process is, the greater the public support for them is.