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Amsterdam, June 6, 2000
[castellano]'European Business Summit' widens EU's democratic gap
CEO launches website on corporate influence over EU policies1500 business leaders and top level European Union policy-makers will meet in Brussels on 9-10 June for the European Business Summit (EBS), a showcase of the dangerously close liaisons between corporate and political elites in the European Union. Under the heading 'Innovation and Creativity' the EBS demands sweeping marketisation of European societies: accelerated privatisation, minimised public spending on social protection and care, reduced corporate taxes, labour market deregulation, free play for biotechnology, and full-scale trade and investment liberalisation.
At least ten European Commissioners will speak at the EBS, including Commission President Romano Prodi and Commission Vice-President Loyola de Palacio; they will share the podium with the chair persons and chief executive officers of Europe's major transnational corporations. Erik Wesselius of the Amsterdam-based Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) comments: "By endorsing and attending the European Business Summit en masse, the European Commission acknowledges captains of industry as powerful political actors. This undermines democracy."
The EBS organisers claim that the event will be "unique in that it will bring together two milieus that often work side by side: industry and the European institutions." Says Erik Wesselius: "A bizarre statement - liaisons between EU decision-makers and industry are already far too close and arguably one of the major causes for the EU’s democratic deficit".
The European Business Summit, masterminded by the employers organisation UNICE and the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT), will present a set of concrete policy recommendations to the European Commission and EU member state governments. The EBS organisers announce that business will monitor "progress towards implementation" of its demands (EBS website: www.ebsummit.org).
Five fact sheets with detailed analysis (background on the EBS and the corporate lobby groups behind the EBS, concrete examples of EC liaisons with industry as well as biographies of industrialists turned international corporate politicians) can be found on a new website launched by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO): <http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/ebsummit/>
A press conference, including a speaker from Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), will take place on June 8th at 10.30 a.m. in Building EASTMAN, 135 rue Belliard, Brussels. The press conference is organised by "Voix Dissonantes", a coalition of civil society groups criticizing the European Business Summit. For practical details, contact Daniel Spoel, tel: +(32 2) 5239854
For more information, contact: Erik Wesselius, Corporate Europe Observatory, tel/fax: +31-20-612-7023, e-mail: <ceo@xs4all.nl>
We also recommend you read the CEO factsheets on the EBS. The following factsheets are available on this site:
Factsheet #1 - EBS - Consolidating Corporate Control over EU Policies
Factsheet #2 -
UNICE - Preaching free market fundamentalismFactsheet #3 - ERT - Corporate Europe's Elite
Factsheet #4 - The EC's dangerous liaisons with industry
Factsheet #5 - Industrialists or Corporate Politicians?
From Seattle to Brussels - New statement launched by European groups
The EBS is also the event chosen by a coalition of European groups to launch a new position statement - "From Seattle to Brussels" - critical of the role the EU institutions have played in promoting a neoliberal agenda worldwide, particularly through the European Commission's push for a new round in the WTO.
Paulus Potterstraat 201071 DA Amsterdam
