Articles

The biggest banks in Europe have little to fear from the EU's new banking regulations. But the public does. Due to loopholes the new rules will not prevent costly bailouts in the future. The risks are made clear in a recent accounting sleight of hand by Deutsche Bank.

As the European Commission closes the application process for its new Tax Good Governance Platform in the midst of more scandalous news of offshore tax avoidance and evasion, it needs to learn from past mistakes and not allow the Platform to become a lobby tool of the financial industry.

As European Union (EU) member states consider the implications of environmentally risky shale gas development (fracking), negotiations are underway for a controversial EU–Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) that would grant investors the right to challenge governments’ decisions to ban and regulate fracking.

The battle for data privacy sets digital rights activists against what Commission Vice-President Reding describes as some of the most aggressive industry lobbying she has ever witnessed. Areas of ALTER-EU's work that are important in the fight for data privacy are the demand for a mandatory lobbying register to end lobbying secrecyand shutting the revolving door for employees between EU institutions and private lobbying firms.

On Sunday 28 April 2013, OLAF’s investigation report on the Dalli case was published on the website of the newspaper Malta Today. After a first reading of the report (of which two pages appear to be missing), read Corporate Europe Observatory's first observations.

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,

On Saturday 20th April, the EU ETS came first place at Climaxi’s Greenwash competition with a big majority, taking 46% of the votes (545 votes). The Greenwash awards, organised by Belgian activist group Climaxi, is meant for organisations or companies who in spite of the green image they cultivate, promote activities which are far from sustainable. The nomination was submitted by Carbon Trade Watch, Corporate Europe Observatory and FERN.

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.