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EBS Factsheet Series - #5
Industrialists or Corporate Politicians?
The EBS promotes a picture of business and politics being two separate worlds that need to get to know each other better. In reality the distinction between business and EU politics is extremely blurred. Many European industrialists are highly active in politics: through their involvement in corporate lobby groups, think-tanks and other organisations set up to influence the EU's political agenda. To give an idea of the magnitude of the problem, here follows the biographies of some prime examples of this influential, but underexposed new category of European political figures: the international corporate politician.
(All featuring in the list of speakers at the EBS)
Viscount Etienne Davignon (68), former EU Commissioner (1977-1984) and chairperson of Société Générale de Belgique since 1989, is one of the most prominent representatives of the new breed of 'corporate politicians '. After leaving the European Commisison and joining Société Générale in 1985, Davignon has been very politically active through several lobby groups and think-tanks. Closely involved in the creation of the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT, see factsheet #3), Davignon became an active Roundtable member as soon as he left the European Commission. He is also a founder and president of the Association for Monetary Union in Europe (AMUE - corporate lobby group promoting the single currency) as well as chairperson of the EU-Japan Business Dialogue Roundtable. Davignon is also a member of the Trilateral Commission and has recently become chair of the Bilderberg Group (two powerful corporate think-tanks).
Gerhard Cromme (57), Chair and CEO of ThyssenKrupp, is one of the masterminds behind the restructuring of the German steel industry in the 1990s (including a hostile take-over of Thyssen in 1999), costing thousands of jobs. In early March 1999, Cromme together with 21 other German business leaders signed a letter to German Chancellor Schröder threatening a mass corporate exodus from the country if the government would stick to finance minister Oskar Lafontaine's progressive taxation plans. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Lafontaine resigned and his tax proposals were withdrawn. Cromme is a longstanding member of the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT) and chaired the ERT working group on the European Union 's Intergovernmental Conference in 1996-97.
Andrew Buxton (61), until November 1999 chair of Barclays Bank, is president of the British Bankers Association, chair of the Confederation of British Industry's (CBI) Economic Affairs Committee and chair of the Overseas Project Board at the UK Department of Trade and Industry. Internationally, Mr Buxton has as head of the so-called Financial Leaders Group (FLG) been actively influencing the negotiations on World Trade Organisation's Financial Services Agreement (1997). Invited by former EU Commissioner Brittan, Buxton initiated the European Services Network and the European Service Leaders Group (modeled after the sucessful FLG, it is together known as the European Services Forum - ESF) to advise the EU on its negotiating strategies for the WTO's new negotiations on liberalisation of trade in services (GATS 2000).
Lord David Simon of Highbury is a businessman turned politician. Simon was chief executive officer at British Petroleum until 1997, and at that time vice-chair of the European Roundtable of Industrialists. In 1995 he was appointed by Jacques Santer as a member of the Competitiveness Advisory Group. In 1997, after leaving BP, Lord Simon joined the Blair government as Minister for Trade and Competitiveness in Europe. After stepping down as minister in August 1999, Lord Simon co-authored the so-called "Dehaene Report " (October 1999), advising the European Commission on the revision of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Egil Myklebust (59), president and chief executive officer of Norsk Hydro (petrochemicals) has been chair of the World Business Council on Sustainable Development for the past three years. He is also a member of the European Roundtable of Industrialists. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), which describes itself as "the pre-eminent business voice on sustainable development" was the first corporate lobby group to forge an institutionalised partnership with the United Nations. A wolf in sheep's clothing, the WBCSD consists of some of the world's most polluting companies, and can be held partly responsible for the lack of global progress in the areas of environment and development since its creation in the early nineties. Myklebust's own company, Norsk Hydro, is an major producer of environmentally hazardous PVCs and has been responsible for several cases of environmental damage related to oil drilling activities.
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