Fund Lobby Admits to Masquerade

The World Water Forum is the world's largest water policy event, but is it an appropriate platform for discussing solutions to the world's water problems? CEO's Martin Pigeon, together with other water activists, blogged from Istanbul on the discussion taking place.

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In the last few weeks, CEO has tried in vain to access the European Parliament's Register of Intergroups. After numerous phone-calls and fruitless email correspondence, we raised the white flag and wrote a complaint letter to the Parliament's Quaestors instead. Our failed search for the register reveals an unacceptable lack of transparency.

2011 may mark a watershed in the history of the European Union. Using the pretext of the “euro crisis”, the European Commission and the Council have put forward proposals to give the EU new powers to deal with core welfare issues, including social benefits and wages, under a new technocratic procedure –  hard (if not impossible) to track, let alone influence by those who stand to lose out. The proposals embody a corporate social and economic agenda which, if enacted, will constitute a “silent revolution” imposed from above, with no real democratic debate or popular participation.

BRUSSELS – Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has today filed a complaint with the European Ombudsman, accusing the European Commission’s Directorate General for Trade of discriminating in favour of corporate lobby groups and of attempting to obscure evidence of its close relationship with business from public scrutiny.

CEO publishes a new educational tool explaining some of the major problems at EFSA, the agency responsible for scientific advice on food safety to the EU institutions. A 3 minutes animation allows you to find out more how EFSA operates and to what extent this benefits the big food, biotech and pesticides corporations such as Monsanto, Syngenta, Unilever, Nestlé... Are EFSA's experts and management independent from industry? What role does industry play in EFSA food safety tests? Doesn't EFSA look at other, independent research on these products? Available in French and English. Please pass it on and use this widely in your networks!