BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Banks, insurance companies and other players in the financial sector go to particularly great lengths to influence political decisions and legislation. According to an evaluation by the citizens' movement Finanzwende, no other industry is so strongly represented among the 100 financially strongest lobby players in the Bundestag. This emerges from the publicly viewable lobby register, the association explained.

According to the register, 11 of the 100 lobbyists with the largest budgets are banks, insurance companies and investment companies. Together, the top 10 financial lobby groups and associations spend more than €42.5 million a year on cultivating contacts and trying to influence policy, it said.

The lobby register has been maintained on the website of the German Bundestag for a year. It is intended to make visible who is influencing political decisions and legislation. The citizens' movement Finanzwende itself is also registered there./tam/DP/zb