Barroso
administration: Golden medal in serving interests
A
research by the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO)
“Through
the course of the crisis, attempts by corporations and corporate
lobby groups to influence EU policies have probably been more
successful than ever, in part due to a close relationship with the
Commission.”
“Corporate
Europe Observatory has gathered a lot of evidence over time and
covering many different areas that shows how the Commission is easily
captured by corporate interests. This report is an attempt to produce
a condensed version of how the Commission has come to act on behalf
of corporations over the past five years, focusing on climate
policies, agriculture and food, finance, economic, and fiscal
policies.”
1
- The corporate trade and investment agenda
Key
findings
“During
the past four years, DG Trade [Commission’s Directorate General for
Trade] has negotiated far-reaching free trade agreements for their
friends in the business sector with nearly the whole of the rest of
the world. Some negotiations have been concluded: the controversial
EU-Colombia-Peru trade deal, for example, which implies gross
violations of human rights, and the rights of trade unionists in
particular (Colombia has the highest number of trade union murders
in the world); or the infamous Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement (ACTA) which was eventually axed by the European Parliament
when millions took to the streets fearing that ACTA would allow
corporations to censor the internet.”
“In the
past four years DG Trade has also embraced sweeping powers for
foreign investors. They have granted big business the right to claim
multi-million dollar compensations for democratic laws to protect the
environment or public health – just because these laws allegedly
reduced business profits.”
“The
ongoing trade negotiations between the EU and India are one of many
examples of how DG Trade puts big business in the driving seat. If
the deal is secured, it will threaten the livelihoods of millions of
small farmers, fisherfolk, street vendors, and indigenous people in
India. For example, the Indian retail sector will be opened to
competition from EU supermarket giants such as Tesco and Carrefour.
There are 33 million small scale traders in India. How can they
compete with cost-cutting, supermarket style?”
“The
Commission has assured European retail and other industries that,
“we must decide together what we want, then work out how to get
it” from India. In countless exclusive meetings and email exchanges
with the EU‘s negotiating team, business has been given sensitive
information about the on-going talks – information that was later
withheld from public interest groups – and has been invited to
provide details about problems they face in penetrating the Indian
market.”
“EU-US
negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
(TTIP) are another example of the privileged access and undue
influence that the Commission grants industry over its trade policy.
An internal Commission document obtained through the EU’s access
to information rules shows that, to prepare the trade talks, DG Trade
has had at least 119 meetings behind closed doors with large
corporations and their lobby groups – but it has had only a handful
with trade unions and consumer groups. When negotiations were
announced in February 2013, not a single such meeting with public
interest groups had taken place – compared to dozens with business
lobbyists. The result is an unsavoury big-business-first agenda for
the TTIP. The leaked Commission proposal for the so called
“regulatory cooperation” in the agreement, for example, mirrors
joint plans by industry associations BusinessEurope and the US
Chamber of Commerce which would essentially allow business lobbyists
to “co-write legislation” in the future. This would allow
corporations to rewrite rules in the financial sector, food labelling
requirements or environmental standards to be more compatible with
their interests – to the detriment of consumers, workers and the
stability of our economies.”
“In
response to growing public outcry over the investor rights in TTIP,
the European Commission has just halted negotiations and published a
public consultation on the issue, which will run until early July.”
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