Finance

What influence does the financial lobby have over banking regulation and other financial markets?

European Central Bank has bought more climate-trashing bonds

23.06.2017

Pressure has been mounting on the European Central Bank over its purchases of certain corporate bonds, but new research shows no change. In its mission to stimulate the economy, it is still purchasing climate-harming bonds.

Trump: Corporate trade as usual, now with added xenophobia

22.05.2017

Reports of TTIP's death have been greatly exaggerated; its agenda fits all too well with Trump’s corporate buddies and with the EU’s corporate trade agenda - his plea to change US trade policy and populist outbursts notwithstanding. It is likely to return in one form or another.

European Central Bank

Stop the ECB subsidising climate disaster

08.03.2017

70 civil society organisations call on the European Central Bank to stop subsidising the climate crisis through its corporate bond purchasing scheme, the 'Corporate Sector Purchase Programme'.

Expert groups

Corporate interests continue to dominate key expert groups

14.02.2017

New study on the Commission's legislative advisory groups highlights a continuing Big Business bias - despite Commission's new rules.

European Central Bank

The ECB’s ‘quantitative easing’ funds multinationals and climate change

12.12.2016

Corporate Europe Observatory has decoded the list of beneficiaries of the European Central Bank’s corporate bond purchasing scheme. The results are disturbing, unless you think oil, fancy cars, motorways, champagne, and gambling are good places to put public money.

Revolving doors

Barroso’s Gold-plated revolving door

16.08.2016

Never before has a former European Commission official been criticised as much for his post-EU career as ex-Commission president Barroso upon joining infamous US investment bank Goldman Sachs this summer. Citizens are outraged and evidence already points towards a gross violation of the EU Treaty.

Revolving doors

Barroso and Goldman Sachs - a dangerous liaison

19.07.2016

José Manuel Barroso's move to Goldman Sachs has catapulted the EU’s revolving door problem onto the political agenda. It is symbolic of the excessive corporate influence at the highest levels of the EU.

Brexit

Lobbying on the UK referendum: a freedom of information black hole

15.06.2016

In the run up to the UK referendum on EU membership on 23 June, Corporate Europe Observatory has tabled a series of freedom of information requests to find out how UK finance lobbies have been influencing the referendum negotiations and the Capital Markets Union. But the Brexit-Bremain referendum seems to be a freedom of information black hole.

Brexit

How Cameron delivered victories to Big Finance

15.06.2016

From the day a referendum on UK membership of the EU was first announced in 2013, the financial sector started using Cameron’s re-negotiation process to promote its deregulatory agenda. Sometimes lobbying was required, but more often the UK government did its work for them.

EU trade deals

Dangerous Regulatory Duet

18.01.2016

The ongoing EU-US trade negotiations, TTIP, seek to bring rules on both sides of the Atlantic together by means of so-called regulatory cooperation. Our new report with LobbyControl "Dangerous Regulatory Duet" finds that regulatory cooperation procedures have already been used to delay, water down and prevent legislation in the public interest.

Conflicts of interest

Draghi and ECB now even closer to lobbyists from megabanks

13.01.2016

In 2015 the European Central Bank tightened its ethics rules in the wake of a major scandal over privileged information it gave to select financiers. In the future there will be more restrictions on the way the leadership associates with representatives of financial corporations. But the discoveries from the scandal seems to have no bearing on the way the ECB's top brass deals with the quasi-lobby Group of Thirty.

Banking regulation

DG FISMA's lobby meetings: corporate bias and access for unregistered lobbyists

17.12.2015

Juncker´s transparency initiative shows only tip of the iceberg