Corporate Europe Observatory

In a remarkable statement on its website, OLAF writes that the 41 paragraph summary of the evaluation report of OLAF’s Supervisory Committee on OLAF’s investigations into the Dalli case that Corporate Europe Observatory published on this website on Tuesday 23 April, is part of “attempts to mislead and manipulate public opinion”. OLAF’s short statement does not go into the contents of the summary. There is therefore no reason to believe that the summary does not adequately reflect the content of the (still confidential) Supervisory Committee on OLAF’s investigations into the Dalli case.

To: Commissioner T. Borg

Cc: Commissioners D. Ciolos, J. Potočnik, Secretary General of the Commission C. Day

Dear Commissioner,

The European Commission's new proposal on Corporate Social Responsibility reporting has been weakened by industry pressure to the extent that it is now virtually meaningless. Business lobbies, with very active support from the German government, have successfully pushed for voluntary reporting with non-binding requirements that can be selectively interpreted and would not be enforceable.

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.