European Commission Must Act to Curb Excessive Corporate Lobbying Power Open Letter to José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission (PDF version) Amsterdam, October 25 2004 Dear Mr. Barroso, The undersigned over 50 civil society groups from more than a dozen European Union countries call upon you to act immediately to curb the excessive influence of corporate lobby groups over EU policy-making. Over fifteen thousand full-time lobbyists now operate in Brussels, a large majority representing business interests. Lobby groups succeed all too frequently in postponing, weakening or blocking sorely needed progress in EU social, environmental and consumer protections. The European Commission must take action now to prevent Europe from drifting towards the levels of corporate control exercised over politics in the United States. We welcome the decision to introduce a "Code of Conduct for Commissioners" (including a full declaration of financial interests) and designate Commissioner Neelie Kroes' pledge to refrain from accepting business positions after her term as Competition Commissioner. These are steps in the right direction, but they are not sufficient. All European Commissioners and other Commission officials should be obliged to accept substantial and well-defined cooling-off periods. Such measures are needed to prevent 'revolving door' cases like that of former Trade Commissioner Brittan, who less than a year after leaving the European Commission became not only consultant on WTO issues at the law firm Herbert Smith, but also Vice-Chairman of the investment bank UBS Warburg and Advisory Director at Unilever. Soon after, he also accepted the Chairmanship of the LOTIS Committee of International Financial Services London (IFSL), a lobby group representing the UK financial industry. Such cases do nothing to enhance the reputation of the European Commission. Thousands of lobbyists, assisted by an army of public affairs consultants, today play a powerful and increasingly undemocratic role in the EU political process. As a first step in addressing these problems, Europe needs far stricter ethics and transparency requirements. So far, the Commission's response has been deeply inadequate; limited to referring to the extremely narrow and entirely voluntary code of conduct developed by the Society of European Public Affairs Practitioners (SEAP). One of many examples illustrating the need for improved and enforceable ethics and transparency rules is the case of the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum (BSEF) which is lobbying against tighter health and environment regulations concerning toxic bromines. Considerable research efforts are needed to discover that the BSEF - a very active player in the EU decision-making process on bromine flame retardants - is nothing but an industry front group run from the Brussels offices of a global PR firm, on behalf of chemical industry clients. Without a radical improvement of the registration and reporting obligations for lobbyists working to influence the European institutions, there can be no effective democratic scrutiny of corporate influence over EU policy-making. Europe should learn from the lobbying disclosure legislation in place in the United States and Canada and oblige firms and organisations targeting the EU institutions (with a lobbying budget over a certain threshold) to submit regular reports giving details on the issues they are lobbying on, for which clients and with what budget. These lobbying disclosure reports should be fully accessible to the public in an online searchable database. We also call upon the new European Commission to make a clean break with the undemocratic practices developed by your predecessors, for instance the incestuous relationship with the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue (TABD), co-founded in 1995 by Commissioner Leon Brittan. The TABD is a prime example of the inappropriate influence over EU trade and regulatory policies which previous European Commissions have granted large corporations. We draw to your attention that the Prodi Commission in 2003 took the deeply undemocratic step to accelerate implementation of the TABD's demands by introducing a "Framework for Delivery" and establishing a "Horizontal Liaison Group" of high-level Commission officials at the service of the TABD. Questions on this topic were raised during the European Parliament's hearing with Peter Mandelson on October 4th, but the Commissioner-designate failed to reply. The European Services Forum (ESF) is another example of a corporate grouping awarded far-reaching and inordinate privileges by the European Commission. As EU policies should serve the public interest, not the narrow commercial agendas of large corporations, we urge you to strip these and other business lobby groups of their inappropriate privileges. We look forward to your response to these proposals, which we believe are of the highest importance for improving the democratic credibility of the European Commission. Yours sincerely, Erik Wesselius Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) Read our follow-up letter to Mr. Barroso (16 November 2004), containing a short comment on the letter that the Society of European Affairs Professionals (SEAP) sent to Mr. Barroso in reaction to the Open Letter on Curbing Excessive Corporate Lobbying Power. Corporate lobbying organisations in Brussels oppose binding rules on transparency and ethics for lobbyists in Brussels. Read more. Signatories (over 260 civil society groups - as of 17 December 2004): Afrika Europa Netwerk, The Netherlands Agir ici, France Agrarbündnis, Austria Alliance for Sustainable Development, Latvia Alliance of People of African descent in Europe ÄrztInnen für eine gesunde Umwelt (ISDE Austria) A SEED Europe Association of Critical Shareholders in Germany Association of Farmers (ATB), Malta Associazione Consumatori Utenti ONLUS, Italy ATTAC Austria ATTAC España, Spain ATTAC Finland ATTAC Flanders, Belgium ATTAC France ATTAC Germany ATTAC Sweden Baby Milk Action, United Kingdom Berne Declaration, Switzerland Both ENDS, The Netherlands Bundeskoordination Internationalismus (BUKO), Germany Bureau Ver(?)antwoord, The Netherlands Caliu, Catalunia Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale, Italy Campagne tegen Wapenhandel, The Netherlands Centro Nuovo Modello di Sviluppo, Italy CLAT, The Netherlands Coalition Against Bayer Dangers, Germany Consumer Interests Platform (BeVaCo), The Netherlands CornerHouse, United Kingdom Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) Crocevia, Italy Defend Council Housing, United Kingdom Diaspora Afrique, France digicarefoundation.org, The Netherlands Ecologistas en Acción, Spain E.KAT.O. - Hellenic Consumer Organisation, Greece ESK, Basque Country Estonian Green Movement EU-AG ATTAC Germany European Environmental Bureau (143 member organizations in 31 countries) European Farmers Coordination (CPE) FERN – the EU forest campaign For Mother Earth, Belgium Friends of the Earth Europe (more than 30 national organisations with thousands of local groups) Greenpeace (European Unit) Hungarian Young Greens IBFAN-GIFA, Switzerland IBFAN Italia Initiativ Liewensufank asbl, member of IBFAN, Luxembourg Informationsgruppe Lateinamerika, Austria Institute for Economic Relocalisation, France Institute of Environmental Economics, Poland Kairos Europa KEPKA-Consumers Protection Centre, Greece Konsument-Forum, Sweden "Less beneficence, more rights", Italian coalition of NGOs Monitoring Network Health and Environment, The Netherlands Movement for Direct Democracy, Czech Republic National Plaform EU Research and Information Centre, Ireland Nonviolent Peaceforce NordBruk, Sweden Observatori del Deute en la Globalització, Catalonia Open Asia Denmark Österreichische Bergbauern- und Bergbäuerinnenvereinigung, Austria Oxfam Solidarity, Belgium Pesticide Action Network, United Kingdom Privacy International, United Kingdom Protect the Future, Hungary Quaker Council for European Affairs Quercus - National Association for Nature Conservation, Portugal Referendum Platform, the Netherlands Rete di Lilliput, Italy Roba dell'Altro Mondo Fair Trade, Italy SANE (Swansea Airport No Expansion), Wales, United Kingdom Shareholders club Sisyfos, Sweden Småbrukare i Sjuhärad, Sweden Spinwatch Swedish Consumer Coalition (Sveriges Konsumenter i Samverkan) TIE-Netherlands Transnational Institute (TNI) Women in Development Europe (WIDE) World Development Movement, United Kingdom Umanotera, Foundation for Sustainable Development, Slovenia URFIG, France War on Want, United Kingdom Werkgroep Globalisering Delft-Den Haag, The Netherlands Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF), The Netherlands Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Sweden Women's International League for Peace and Freedom UK Section World Economy, Ecology & Development (WEED), Germany XminusY Solidarity Fund, Netherlands Signatories from outside of Europe: Consumer Action, United States Humanitarian Group For Social Development (HGSD), Lebanon Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, United States