Food & agriculture

How do agribusiness corporations impact decisions on our food system?

The lobby firm that works both sides of the room

09.05.2016

Demonstrating the problematic symbiosis between corporate interests and EU institutions, the same lobbying consultancies often get hired by both.

Biotech lobby’s push for new GMOs to escape regulation

02.02.2016

The biotech industry is staging an audacious bid to have a whole new generation of genetic engineering techniques excluded from European regulations. The pending decision of the European Commission on the regulation of these so-called 'new GMOs' represents a climax point in the ongoing below-the-radar attack by industry on GM laws.

A Toxic Affair: How the chemical lobby blocked action on hormone disrupting chemicals

19.05.2015

An investigation led by research and campaign group Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and journalist Stéphane Horel exposes corporate lobby groups mobilising to stop the EU taking action on hormone (endocrine) disrupting chemicals (EDCs). The report sheds light on how corporations and their lobby groups have used numerous tactics from the corporate lobbying playbook: scaremongering, evidence-discrediting, and delaying tactics as well as the ongoing TTIP negotiations as a leverage.

EFSA appoints a food industry lobbyist as Communications Director and refuses to disclose why it did

18.03.2016

The EU Food Safety Authority refuses to disclose new Director's Declaration of Interests and its own assessment of this person's interests.

Conflicts of interest

Conflicts of Interest at the European Food Safety Authority: Enough is enough!

02.03.2016

An Open Letter to the European Parliament's Budget Control Committee

Pesticides & GMOs

Glyphosate relicensing - the story so far

02.03.2016

The relicensing procedure for one of the world's most widely used herbicides

Key evidence withheld as 'trade secret' in EU's controversial risk assessment of glyphosate

17.02.2016

Companies who make the pesticide glyphosate refuse to disclose key scientific evidence about its possible risks in the name of trade secrets protection. CEO appeals to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to disclose all the possible original elements of three key scientific studies it used in assessing glyphosate as “unlikely” to cause cancer to humans. We also call MEPs to reject the Trade Secrets Directive in the April 2016 plenary vote on the final text.

Pesticides & GMOs

US company railroads EU decision-making on new GM

02.02.2016

At least one developer of new GM crops – US-based Cibus – has attempted to bypass the European policy process by presenting policy makers with a fait accompli: decisions by individual Member States on the regulatory status of new techniques, as well as prematurely-launched trials of new GM crops.

Pesticides & GMOs

Of apples and potatoes: the Dutch lobby for the deregulation of cisgenesis

02.02.2016

The voice of the Dutch Government has been loud and clear in Brussels on the issue of cisgenic plants. The Dutch have waged a sustained campaign to have new GM techniques – and in particular cisgenesis – excluded from EU GMO regulations. Several Dutch ministries, the Dutch Parliament, the Dutch Permanent Representation in Brussels, and Dutch MEPs have energetically pursued this goal.

EU review of weedkiller glyphosate adds secrecy to controversy

14.01.2016

More than 80 per cent of the national experts involved in the EU's official assessment of glyphosate refused to have their names disclosed to the public.