Articles

Progressive municipalist city governments from Barcelona, to Naples, to Grenoble have introduced radical democratic programmes to tranmsform the EU from the bottom up. Despite facing obstacles from neoliberal policies from the EU and member states, these cities are finding ways to bypass many of these hurdles.

To classify as strongly and widely as possible, or not to – that is the EU’s question on titanium dioxide right now. The chemical is found in many everyday items including sunscreen and paint and is a “suspected carcinogen”. Discussion of the classification issue are underway, and what is already clear is that the controversy about corporate lobbying on this file is making some member states think again.

Excessive corporate influence over policy-making remains a serious threat to the public interest across Europe and at the EU level, warns a new report by our partner organisation ALTER-EU.

Corporate Europe Observatory shows how the past ten years of financial lobbying have left us vulnerable to future crises and costly bailouts. Despite their responsibility for the 2008 crash, the financial sector has successfully avoided major reform in the decade since - and has shaped new legislation with big loopholes and conditions similar to those that created the crash in the first place.

Ten years since the crisis - here is our wrap up of the financial lobby's role in causing the crisis and how they have since continued to fight back against people's demands for effective rules on financial markets.

The political climate in the Czech Republic has grown increasingly repressive following the election of oligarch Andrej Babiš as prime minister in October 2017. With the Czech civil society space squeezed tighter and tighter by Babiš's government, we want to help draw attention to the duress and threats under which many progressive organisations and media outlets now have to work. In the following interview, our Czech board member Jakub Patočka explains what is at stake in the country as targeted defamation campaigns and funding withdrawals risk to make the work of critical NGOs and newspapers

Industry lobbyists are spending millions of euros to influence an upcoming EU decision on labelling titanium dioxide – found in everyday products like sunscreen – a “suspected carcinogen”. The lobbying is led by an unregistered trade association and a public relations consultancy; nonetheless, they appear to have the ear of member states and the European Commission.

We pay our taxes, so why don’t corporations? The Big Four are embedded in EU policy-making on tax avoidance and this report concludes that it is time to kick this industry out of EU anti-tax avoidance policy.

Documents released to Corporate Europe Observatory following a Freedom of Information request reveal how pro-biotech lobby platform Public Research Regulation Initiative (PRRI) unites industry, researchers and regulators in ‘like-minded’ groups to influence crucial international biosafety talks under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).