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Industry: “Instead of calling it more public money, more pollution, and more climate description, maybe we call it the Antwerp Declaration?”
By @CartoonRalph
Dissecting the Antwerp Declaration
A series of cartoons
What follows is based on a Twitter/X thread published on the occasion of the May 2024 EU Council's Competitiveness Council meeting. All cartoons by @CartoonRalph
Today #COMPET Council meets to agree new conclusions on “a competitive European industry”. #Competitiveness is word of the moment in Brussels bubble with Europe’s biggest industries pushing this agenda hard. But this agenda should worry us deeply.
Will the corporate-friendly ‘competitiveness’ agenda subsume consumer safety, workers' rights, and the environment?
By @CartoonRalph
Among business initiatives pushing the #Competitiveness agenda is the Antwerp Declaration, a lobby agenda pushed by #BigToxics & other intensive energy-using corporations. The branding may be new but the content = familiar corporate lobby demands.
Industry: “Instead of calling it more public money, more pollution, and more climate description, maybe we call it the Antwerp Declaration?”
By @CartoonRalph
Chief among industry’s not-so-new demands are false solutions to the #ClimateCrisis, a focus on net zero not real zero emissions, and unproven carbon capture technologies, risky and expensive nuclear, and energy intensive hydrogen.
Industry: “We aren’t driving climate destruction, we are just putting carbon into the atmosphere for capture later … we are thinking ahead!”
By @CartoonRalph
And industry has the begging bowl out, demanding more public funding and what it calls “competitive and sustainable taxes” which is jargon for the lowest possible corporate taxes. This is a reversal of the Polluter Pays principle.
https://corporateeurope.org/en/2024/05/open-letter-mario-draghi-and-urs…
Two plates: on the left is a huge pile with money, jewellery, property etc entitled ‘corporate appetite for public money’. On the right hand plate, is a single coin, called ‘corporate appetite for paying taxes’.
By @CartoonRalph
Industry agenda reeks of deregulation, rolling back some rules & making sure others suit industry interests. Demanding an even bigger role for Regulatory Scrutiny Board risks cementing the emphasis on economic criteria in pre-legislative scrutiny.
https://corporateeurope.org/en/better-regulation-corporate-friendly-deregulation-disguise
CSOs: “Regulation protects the things we care about – we need to keep it that way”
By @CartoonRalph
Remember this is an agenda that was launched at a business-only event at the BASF site in Antwerp, coordinated by CEFIC, and supported by chemical & other polluting industries, but without reference to the toxic pollution crisis!
https://corporateeurope.org/en/2024/02/corporate-capture-environmental-crises
On one side of the cartoon there is a polluting factory entitled BASF Antwerp. On the other side of some water there are people in suits clinking wine glasses under a banner which says Industry and #EU2024BE lobby event.
By @CartoonRalph
VDL was also in Antwerp & following her dismantling of ambitions in #FarmtoFork (pesticide targets abandoned) & Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (#REACHrevision & #ExportBan unpublished), Antwerp Declaration fits into direction of Commission
https://corporateeurope.org/en/2024/02/crying-wolf-win-chemicals-lobby-…
Near von der Leyen's desk is a waste paper bin labelled “out” and inside and around it we see crumpled papers “REACH reforms”, “pesticide reduction”, “export bans”.
By @CartoonRalph
Recently trade unions heavily criticised EU gas industry for its failure to adopt a #JustTransition agreement for industry workers, after 9 months of negotiations. #JustTransition reference in #AntwerpDeclaration already seems to be just empty words
https://www.epsu.org/article/gas-employers-deny-gas-workers-fair-and-green-transition
For #EUelections we need real solutions to crises we face: social, environmental, & economic. #AntwerpDeclaration and #Competitiveness will make these worse. Check our new podcasts: what’s going wrong at the EU level … and how to put it right.
https://corporateeurope.org/en/2024/04/ceo-launches-new-podcast-series
It's time for Toxic-Free Politics now!
“Toxic free EU”. “Go toxic free”.
By @CartoonRalph
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