Corporate Europe Observatory

CEO has reported a lot about Dalligate, the tobacco cash-for-influence lobby scandal that led to the downfall, in mysterious and contested circumstances, of former health Commissioner John Dalli. One of the reasons Dalligate is such a juicy affair is that it starkly illustrates the problems with voluntary lobby transparency and with inadequate management of the conflicts of interest that arise from the revolving-door – public officials becoming big business lobbyists, and vice versa.

The report "EU ETS myth busting" has been co-published by more than 40 organisations, including Corporate Europe Observatory. It shows that far from being the ‘best tool’ to combat climate change, the EU ETS is inherently too weak to drive the sustainable energy transformation the EU needs in order to stay within global warming limits. It is systemically flawed and cannot be fixed.

Private letters reveal Syngenta and Bayer’s furious lobbying against EU measures to save bees. Will the pesticide lobby succeed in convincing Member States to vote no to a ban?

Particularly significant is the proposal on structural reforms, first put forward last year by President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy. Fundamentally the Commission would require eurozone member states to sign bilateral contracts – a so-called “Convergence and Competitiveness Instrument” – on a number of structural reforms. In exchange for compliance the member state would be rewarded with financial incentives.

The Dalligate scandal entered a new stage last week when Swedish Match admitted that they knew a key lobby meeting with Mr. Dalli, where the alleged 60 million euro bribe was offered, had not in fact taken place, and claimed that it was EU anti-fraud agency OLAF that had instructed them to stick to the erroneous story. Corporate Europe Observatory has today taken several new steps to increase the pressure on Barroso and OLAF to clear the smoke around Dalligate, including complaints against Swedish Match and OLAF, and freedom of information requests about Swedish Match lobbyists who went through the revolving door from the EU institutions.