|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
You are here: FoEE / Economic Justice
/ Lobby Power
SUPPORT ALTER-EU new campaign! Help us block the revolving door between the Commission and lobby firms
November 2011 Fifty per cent or more of our laws come from Brussels and it is vital that these policies work in the interests of people and environment - not big business. Yet, the EU has a close relationship with corporate interests and many EU officials go through the 'revolving door' meaning that they leave their EU job and soon start working for industry or lobby firms, often in the same policy area. Other times, lobbyists go through the revolving door and start to work for the EU institutions. When this happens, corporate groups gain inside-knowledge, vital contacts, and above all, powerful influence. As a result, Brussels becomes even more industry-dominated and more remote from citizens' concerns and the public interest. This raises serious questions about the political culture in Brussels and shows how we need new rules to tackle these conflicts of interest. ALTER-EU demands tough, new rules to block the revolving door. Find out more about ALTER-EU new campign here Read ALTER-EU new report - Block the revolving door: why we need to stop EU officials becoming lobbyists More questions on the revolving door? read ALTER-EU FAQ here?
WORST EU LOBBYING AWARDS 2010: winners revealed! Thank you for votingWorst EU Lobbying Awards 2010 winners were revealed on 2nd December in Brussels. Find out more at http://worstlobby.eu/ !WATCH the closing ceremony that took place in front of the office of the finance winner in Brussels. Climate winner RWE came to receive his award, greeted by the lobby cleaning squad. The awards might be over, but Brussels lobbying is "still not clean" and Lobby Cleaner shall return. So stay tune! > Closing ceremony Worst EU Lobbying Awards 2010 in Brussels Also watch: ">LC visits BusinessEurope in Brussels Revolving door: thank you for taking action!ALTER-EU successful handover of the 50,000 signatures urging the Commission to close the revolving door in the EUOn 9th November, Brussels-based ALTER-EU campaigners delivered the 50,000 signatures collected by Avaaz to ask for a stronger Code of Conduct for the EU ex-commissioners to transparency Commissioner Maros Sefcovic.
More about our 'Counter Corporate Lobby Power' campaign: Ending corporate privileges and secrecy around lobbying at the EU Over 15,000 professional lobbyists now operate in Brussels, a large majority representing business interests. Yet, ethics and transparency rules around lobbying are virtually non-existent. Beyond the problem of business spending ever-increasing amounts to influence the political process, the European Commission has developed a tradition of awarding privileged access to corporate interests.
Friends of the Earth Europe is one of the founders of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU), a civil society coalition advocating mandatory disclosure and ethics rules for EU lobbyists. ALTER-EU was officially launched at a press conference in Brussels on 19 July 2005 (see founding statement). It calls for the following: 1) EU Lobbying Disclosure legislation which must include a mandatory system of electronic registration and reporting for all lobbyists with a significant annual lobbying budget and enforcable ethics rules for lobbyists. 2) An improved code of conduct for European Commission officials, including recording of formal and informal meetings between Commission officials and lobbyists and extended 'cooling off' periods before Commissioners and senior officials can start working in the lobbying sector. 3) An end to privileged access and undue influence granted to corporate lobbyists, for instance, joint taskforces in which corporate interests are represented while public interest NGOs are not; and the privileged status accorded to business lobby groups like the European Services Forum and the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue. ALTER-EU is supported by over 140 civil society groups, trade unions, academics and public affairs firms (see list of signatories). If you want to join, please go to: http://www.alter-eu.org/contact ALTER-EU has just published a new book: Bursting the Brussels Bubble - the battle to expose corporte lobbying at the heart of the EU - which was launched on 26th April.
Whether it is EU energy policy, liberalisation and privatisation agendas, or the preparation of trade talks - corporate lobbies always have their fingers in the pie. Other interests and values, such as environment or social justice, are often left to the back seats. The enormous influence of corporate lobbyists undermines democracy and all too frequently results in postponing, weakening or blocking urgently needed progress on EU social, environmental and consumer protection. Friends of the Earth Europe, together with their allies in the ALTER-EU and Seattle-to-Brussels networks, researches and exposes cases of corporate lobby power and challenges the undue influence of corporate interests over EU policy. We counter:
More information:
Second and third places went to Shell and the American Petroleum Institute. Thanks to everyone who looked beyond the corporate lobbying and greenwash and cast a vote! You can see details of all the nominees here.
The Angry Mermaid Award was a Copenhagen-themed edition of our annual Worst EU Lobby Award, starring the famous Copenhagen mermaid, who is angry at the way corporations and lobby groups are promoting their own interests at the expense of the planet - you can watch the animated story of the Angry Mermaid below!
Agrofuels lobby and Finnish MEP disgraced at Worst EU Lobbying Awards ceremony Brussels, 9 December 2008- The winners of the 2008 Worst EU Lobbying Awards have been revealed at a ceremony in Brussels today, despite a last minute attempt to gag the organisers with legal action from one of the candidates. More than 8500 people took part in the online public vote. In 2007, German car trio BMW, Daimler and Porsche won the Worst EU Lobbying award with more than 30% of the vote; and the special Greenwash Award went to the German Atomic Forum for its attempts to green nuclear energy. The 2006 prize went to ExxonMobil for their secretive funding of climate-skeptic think tanks, and in 2005 the award was given to the Campaign for Creativity, a front group for large IT companies to lobby for stronger software patents and intellectual property rights. 'Worst EU Lobbying' award 2007
Success in ombudsman complaint against European Commission: the ombudsman accepts our complaint about a conflict of interest in the commission (29 October 2009) European Commission fails to act on conflicts of interests: ALTER-EU says the new Communication on ethics is far too weak ( 06 March 2008)
Success in Ombusman complaint on access to documents request about correspondence between Porsche and Commission: Following the European Commission refusal to disclose the correspondence between car-maker Porsche and former Commission Vice-President G. Verheugen about proposals to reduce cars CO2 emissions in 2006, Friends of the Earth Europe successfully filed a complaint to the European Ombudsman. The Ombudsman pointed at the Commission for its "unco-operative attitude". More than 15 months after the Ombudsman asked the Commission to give access to the documents, it eventually sent the letters on 11 March 2010 but it failed to disclose the whole content of the correspondence. - Read the decision from the ombudsman here - Read the letters disclosed by the Commission (11 March 2010) Following the European Commission refusal to disclose the full letters, FoEE together with ClientEarth threatened of taking legal action. The Commission released the full letters following this legal threat (19 April 2011) - Read the Commission answer to FoEE and Client Earth - Read the letters disclosed: part one, part two, part three Success in ombudsman complaint about registration of BusinessEurope:Following the European Commission's failure to tackle the unrealistically low registration of professional association BusinessEurope in the register of Interest representatives, Friends of the Earth Europe filed a complaint to the European Ombudsman for maladministration (3 December 2009) In April 2011, the European Ombudsman closed his enquiry after achieving a friendly solution. As requested by the Ombudsman, the European Commission agreed to inform FoEE about its review of BusinessEurope's registration and make its procedures for investigating complaints public (5 April 2011). - Read Friends of the Earth Europe's official complaint to the European Commission (10 April 2009) - Read the Ombudsman decision in the case successfully brought by FoEE (April 2011) Cefic suspended from lobby register by Commission: Friends of the Earth Europe successfully files a complaint to the European Commission about the inaccurate registration of chemical lobby group CEFIC in the European Commission register of interest representatives (20 July 2009)
Read more on Corporate Lobby Power
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
