Bursting the Brussels Bubble the battle to exposecorporate lobbyingat the heart of the EU ALTER- Ewww.alter-eu.Uorg Published by the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation in the EU (ALTER-EU) Rue d’Edimbourg 26, 1050 Brussels, Belgium. The full contents of this book are also available online in a pdf version for printing and in an html version with regularly checked hyperlinks to all online sources: www.alter-eu.org/book/bursting-the-brussels-bubble Editorial team:Helen Burley (Corporate Europe Observatory), William Dinan (SpinWatch),Kenneth Haar (Corporate Europe Observatory), Olivier Hoedeman (Corporate Europe Observatory) and Erik Wesselius (Corporate Europe Observatory) Final editing and proofreading:Deborah Eade Cover and design:www.onehemisphere.se Images: © Plainview, Biansho, M. Fischer, Jorisvo/Dreamstime Printing:www.beelzepub.be Printed with vegetable-based ink on 100% recycled paper. ISBN/EAN:978-90-9025327-5 Individual chapters © their authors 2010; book as a whole © ALTER-EU 2010 Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ about ALTER-EU The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation in the EU (ALTER-EU) is a coalition of over 160 civil society groups, trade unions, academics, and public affairs firms concerned with the increasing influence exerted by corporate lobbyists on the political agenda in Europe, the resulting loss of democracy in EU decision-making and the postponement, weakening, and blockage, of urgently needed progress on social, environmental, and consumer-protection reforms. ALTER-EU is a coalition of organisations, not an organisation in its own right. It does not have its own staff or budget. Organisations on the Steering Committee, together with some other ALTER-EU members, contribute staff time and share the costs for specific activities. ALTER-EU is registered in the European Commission Register of Interest Representatives under number: 2694372574-63 ALTER-EU Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation in the EU Rue d’Edimbourg 26, Brussels 1050, Belgium [email protected] www.alter-eu.org contents Bursting the Brussels bubble the battle to exposecorporate lobbyingat the heart of the EU A Foreword 9 Susan George Introduction 15 ALTER-EU Steering Committee Part 1:Brussels – a rough guide to the bubble 1.Brussels: a lobbying paradise 23 Will Dinan, Spinwatch & Erik Wesselius, Corporate Europe Observatory 2.Chemical warfare – the lobbying battle on REACH 33 Jorgo Riss, Greenpeace 3.Journalists caught in the lobbyists’ web 48 Marc Gruber, European Federation of Journalists 4.Paying the piper – think tanks and lobbying 53 Dieter Plehwe, LobbyControl Part 2:Inside the bubble 5.Insider trading – how big business helped set trade policy 67 Vicky Cann, World Development Movement 6.Expert groups – letting corporate interests set the agenda? 76 Yiorgos Vassalos, Corporate Europe Observatory 7.Banking on the bankers – regulation and the financial crisis 87 Kenneth Haar, Yiorgos Vassalos, Corporate Europe Observatory & Andy Rowell, Spinwatch 8.Members only? Conflicts of interest in the European Parliament 94 Andy Rowell, Spinwatch 9.Failure to act – the Commission turns a blind eye to conflicts of interest 103 Olivier Hoedeman, Corporate Europe Observatory 10.Public or private? The problem of industry secondments 114 Nina Katzemich, LobbyControl Part 3:Bursting the bubble 11.Obama and K Street – lobbying reform in the US 125 Craig Holman, Public Citizen 12.Beyond satire – the Worst EU Lobbying Awards 2005-2008 134 Frank van Schaik 13.The battle for lobbying transparency 139 Will Dinan, Spinwatch 14.Access denied? Freedom of Information under threat 148 Tony Bunyan, Statewatch 15.Holding corporations to account – the struggle for regulation 154 Paul de Clerck, Friends of the Earth Europe 16.An act for Parliament 162 Claude Turmes & Fred Thoma, Green Group in the European Parliament 17.Cash cow – digging the dirt on farm subsidies 168 Nils Mulvad, Brigitte Alfter & Jack Thurston, www.farmsubsidy.org 18.Responsible lobbying – urging companies to behave better 177 Christian Humborg, Transparency International Germany Part 4:Unfinished business 19.A way forward 187 ALTER-EU Steering Committee Annexes: The Founding Statement of ALTER-EU 200 Index 207 a foreword Susan George A particularly encouraging recent development is the emergence of a number of sharp and effective corporate lobby watchdog groups, including Corporate Europe Observatory in Brussels, German-based LobbyControl and UK-based Spinwatch. These groups understand the importance of studying the rich and powerful, especially transnational corporations. The watchdogs have proven relentless in their pursuit of information and know how to make their material come alive and to popularise it for a non-scholarly, ordinary-citizen audience. Now they are part of the Alter-EU coalition, made up of over 160 NGOs and trade unions from across Europe. So it is a great pleasure for me to introduce this new collective book entitled Bursting the Brussels Bubble - the battle to expose corporate lobbying at the heart of the EU. ALTER-EU concentrates on the scandal of the thousands of corporate lobbyists who largely make policy in the European Union. The coalition has made some headway - at least the lobbies issue is now firmly on the political agenda and the EU has been forced to set up a voluntary register for lobbyists - laughably ineffective but a register still - and that is at least a foot in the door. The forces that oppose any disclosure and any reduction of preponderant corporate membership in all the important EU ‘expert groups’ that make policy in every conceivable area can supply plenty of inertia to prevent change; they maintain privileged access to Commissioners, Commission staff (24,000 strong) and parliamentarians and they have, so far, won most of the battles - but not all of them. In fact, if the EU were at all democratic or transparent, the corporations would have already been forced to admit defeat. Even in the United States, not known for a virulent anti-business stance, lobbyists have to register with the Congress; they must declare how much they are paid and alter-eu 9 by whom. In contrast, European political structures provide no foolproof way to discover who lobbies whom, for which policies, nor with what budgets. The solid firewalls, for the moment, are still standing and what one does learn must often be through stealth, loopholes or lawsuits. ALTER-EU is not just up against a barrage of secrecy protecting special corporate interests - it faces two other formidable barriers preventing public knowledge of -much less control over - the way power is exercised in the EU. The first is the neoliberal, market-oriented ideology at the foundation of the European construction which permeates the entire enterprise and positively encourages corporate control; the second is a structural lack of democracy. It is no accident that the defeated Constitution, now replaced by the virtually identical Lisbon Treaty, used the word “market” 78 times and the phrase “free and undistorted competition” in seven crucial articles; “competition” has even become an “objective” of the Union and all economic activities, including what one used to call ‘public services’ are specifically subject to competition. In line with the express wishes of BusinessEurope [formerly UNICE, the Union of Industrial and Employers’ Confederation of Europe], there will be no Europe- wide taxation and fiscal policy must be decided unanimously. Or, as a member of the elite European Roundtable of Industrialists put it, the Commission is “extremely open to the business community so that when businessmen like myself face an issue that can only be solved politically, we have access to excellent Commissioners like [several names follow]1. ALTER-EU and this book provide myriad other examples of deep corporate involvement in EU affairs. Even more damaging is the regression of democracy that characterises the European Union. We are not merely facing the classic, well-known so-called “democratic deficit”—this is much too weak and mild description of the EU status quo—but rather an outright attempt to demolish the democratic achievements of the past two-hundred and some years. I am not exaggerating. The democracy demolition squads have eliminated nearly all the possible checks and balances on power so that the Commission along with the Council can, one way or another, more or less do as they please. Take for example the popular mobilisation against the Bolkestein directive aimed at reducing workers’ rights, salaries and working conditions. Thanks to citizen protests, the European Parliament forced through a few changes. But then the European Court of Justice made four important decisions that nullified the changes and reinstated Bolkestein. 10alter-eu