Corporate Europe Observatory

Exposing the power of corporate lobbying in the EU

Charles Dallara of the IIF and How to Negotiate on Both Sides of the Table

  • Dansk
  • Nederlands
  • English
  • Français
  • Deutsch
  • Ελληνικά
  • Italiano
  • Portuguese
  • Español
  • Svenska
Printer-friendly versionSend by emailPDF version

There has been widespread horror at the rise of the far right Golden Dawn party in the recent Greek elections (they polled 7%), with appalled references to the activities of their “t-shirted thugs”.  They are indeed nasty pieces of work, but the real damage to Greek society, and the reason for the rise of the fascists in the first place, is being done by thugs wearing pinstriped suits who are pauperizing the Greeks to protect powerful financial interests.

Published by: 
Andy Storey
Issue: 

Similar entries

Europe's resource grab – Vested interests at work in the European Parliament

On 30 June, the European Parliament’s industry, energy and research committee (ITRE) is due to vote on the EU’s Raw Materials Initiative, establishing guidelines for Europe's future policy on natural resource use. The Parliament’s report could effectively give the green light to mining in protected European nature reserves as well as a resource grab in Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Arctic.

MEP: lobbyism main reason for bad policy

Swedish MEP Carl Schlyter (Green) has told Corporate Europe Observatory that lobbyism is the main reason why the EU makes bad policies. Interviewed about his role as rapporteur for the European Parliament on the future of EU member states' bilateral investment treaties, he spoke about the corporate counter attack on his report, MEPs tabling amendments for industry and governments and about why he turned down requests for meetings with corporate lobbyists.

20 years of Single Market: is there anything for Greeks to celebrate?

In October 2012, the EU celebrated 20 years of the Single Market created by the Maastricht Treaty. At the same time, the Eurozone economy contracted for the first time since 2009 signalling that the crisis in Europe has still not been overcome. The most significant contraction has been in peripheral Eurozone countries with the unambiguous champion, Greece, already in its fifth year of recession. This is one of the longest recessions in a developed country in history. So, does Greece have reason to celebrate the Single Market’s 20th anniversary? Or is the current crisis connected to Greece’s membership of the Single Market?

Letter from EOS and CEO: Continued ILSI activities of EFSA panel members

Earth Open Source and Corporate Europe Observatory have written to EFSA's executive director about undeclared current activities with ILSI by an EFSA panel member. EFSA has so far not acted on this case, which sheds doubts on the implementation of EFSA's new independence rules. Not declaring such activities was in contradiction to the former rules, too.

EP elections ahead, how fast will the revolving door spin?

With the European Parliament elections now just five weeks away, the first election posters have started appearing in cities across Europe. As it becomes clear who will run for (re-)election, it also emerges who is stepping down from being an MEP. Many will return to national politics, retire or look for a new job. What will be really interesting to watch in the coming weeks and months is which of the current MEPs will go through the revolving door into new jobs as industry lobbyists.

Pages


The Brussels Business: Who runs the EU?

Corporate Europe Observatory

Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) is a research and campaign group working to expose and challenge the privileged access and influence enjoyed by corporations and their lobby groups in EU policy making.

Read more

Creative Commons License
All content on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Corporate Europe Forum