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The Parliament has given the Commission one last chance to clean up expert groups. Campaigners say the battle over corporate capture is not over. The European Parliament decided on 19 September, 2012 to lift the block on €2 million (20 per cent) for the Commission's annual budget for its expert groups, the advisory groups set up to assist it in drafting legislation and policies. There are 823 of these groups now in existence.

Monsanto launched a PR offensive to try to spread doubt about a study published two days ago by French scientist Gilles-Éric Séralini: the study showed that the biotech giant's flagship herbicide, Roundup, and one the GM maizes produced by the firm, NK603, are having disastrous effects on rats' health when those are studied during their lifetime and not over the industry-favoured 90 days.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published an ‘external evaluation’ report of the organisation carried out by international consultancy and auditing company Ernst & Young. EFSA proudly presented the conclusions of the report at a press conference in Brussels. EFSA is obliged by its founding regulation to commission an external evaluation of its achievements every six years.

Since the start of the eurocrisis, the European Commission has gained significant new powers to monitor and intervene in government budgets at a member-state level in the name of ‘economic governance’. But power must be accountable.

An army of several hundred industry lobbyists, many representing Japanese and North American corporations, has quietly laid siege to Brussels in an effort to persuade the European Union (EU) not to ban powerful greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) present in Europe’s refrigeration and air conditioning systems.

Corporate Europe Observatory has demanded that the President of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi leaves the ‘Group of Thirty’, a club of central bankers and chief executives from private banks. What is the case about?

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.

Earlier this month the European Commission gave a green light for the ninth European Citizens Initiative (ECI) – a proposal to “Suspend the 2009 EU Climate & Energy Package”, the EU’s plan for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20% and to increase the use of renewable energy by 2020. The organisers can now start collecting the one million signatures needed for the Commission to consider their proposal.

Earlier this month the European Commission gave a green light for the ninth European Citizens Initiative (ECI) – a proposal to ">