Kangaroo Group's base in Parliament challenged

Corporate Europe Observatory has written to the European Parliament's College of Quaestors (the body responsible for administrative matters regarding the running of the Parliament) to question why the Kangaroo Group has an office in the Parliament building. The Kangaroo Group is not a registered Intergroup, nor does it appear to have any other official status vis-a-vis the European Parliament. But members of the group, which include some 50 big companies, including Goldman Sachs, BP and Volkswagen, benefit from the privileged access to the Parliament and to MEPs.

The arms industry uses the Kangaroo Group as one of its lobbying channels to shape EU security and defence policies, via the Kangaroo Group's working group on “Space, Defence & Security”, as CEO has highlighted in its new report on the arms lobby. CEO argues that such activities should not be coordinated from an office inside the European Parliament, and urges the Quaestors to ask the Kangaroo Group to find office space elsewhere.