Blogs

The European Commission promised MEPs in September 2012 that it would rebalance its advisory 'expert groups', putting an end to the dominance of big business interests. DG Enterprise even set a date: 31 January 2013. However, a short investigation by ALTER-EU shows the Commission has missed its deadline, and in some cases groups have become even more industry dominated. it's now down to MEPs to ensure the Commission produces more than empty promises.

The longer term effects of the revolving door between public officials and private sector lobbyists have been graphically illustrated in the wake of the Dalligate lobby scandal, in the case of Michel Petite. Five years on, Petite represents the legal interests of corporate clients to the Commission. Aside from the nutty Commission decision to reappoint him as an ethical adviser on the revolving door, the Petite case illustrates that the upper echelons of political power at the European Commission still don't take the problem of the revolving-door seriously. The EU is seriously lagging behind our neighbours across the Atlantic, in the U.S. and Canada.

In an oral hearing at the EU's General Court in Luxembourg on Friday, 11 January 2013, the EU Commission defended its practice of sharing sensitive information with big business lobby groups while withholding the same information from the general public. The hearing took place in the context of Corporate Europe’s Observatory’s lawsuit, suing the EU Commission for withholding information related to the EU’s free trade talks with India.

Since the European Council met in June 2012, the heads of the main European institutions have put forward several proposals for a so-called “Genuine Economic and Monetary Union”, better known as fiscal union (for a detailed examination of the proposals see). The most detailed proposal was the Blueprint published by the European Commission at the end of November. They argue for a step-by-step approach to complete the fiscal Union.