The Brussels Bubble Remains Impervious To Public Opinion As A Corporate Agenda Is Voted For
By Colin Todhunter
22 October, 2014
Countercurrents.org
The European Union's sham democracy has again been laid bare as a result of the plenary vote of European Parliament to approve the new Jean-Claude Juncker Commission.
The previous Barroso Commission wholeheartedly served a corporate agenda. We may now expect more of the same.
The European Commission is the executive body of the EU and acts as a cabinet government. The new 28-person Juncker Commission includes:
· An ex-petroleum company president as climate commissioner ( Miguel Ari a s Cañete )
· An ex-corporate lobbyist in charge of financial services ( Jonathan Hill ); a former vice-president of the industry lobby group Le Cercle de l'Industrie in charge of economic policy ( Pierre Moscovici )
· An ex-Goldman Sachs financier as research commissioner ( Carlos Moedas )
· The former political no.2 to a Czech multi-billionaire as consumer commissioner ( Vera Jourova ).
The watchdog/campaign body Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has condemned the vote. Olivier Hoedeman of CEO says:
Commissioner-designate Jonathan Hill (finance) has had no fewer than four trips through the revolving door between UK government and politics and the lobby/ PR industry . When he left Quiller Consultants in May 2010 to join the UK government, 55 per cent of Quiller's then declared clients (five out of nine) were either banks or finance firms: HSBC, Bank of America, Citadel, Marwyn and Brewin Dolphin.
Quiller is owned by Huntsworth , which also owns the EU lobby firm Grayling and UK firm Citigate, yet MEPs failed to secure any additional lobby safeguards on Hill - that he would not meet with Quiller, Huntsworth, Grayling, Citigate or any of their clients while commissioner.
In the case of Arias Cañete, the former chairman and shareholder of two petroleum companies, questions about his family's ongoing involvement in these oil companies remain unanswered.
Cañete's role as an administrator of one of the official representatives of the Spanish subsidiary of Panama-based company Angelmo Operational Corp is also controversial. Panama was on the Spanish list of recognised tax havens between 1991 and 2013.
Nearly 600,000 citizens signed a petition to say that Arias Cañete should not be approved by MEPs, demonstrating an unprecedented level of public interest in the commissioner hearings. But MEPs ignored this strong signal and approved his nomination after a secret deal was struck between Jean-Claude Juncker, Martin Schulz MEP (President of the European Parliament) and Manfred Weber MEP (leader of the EPP group).
Olivier Hoedeman says:
Hoedeman continues:
Corporate Europe Observatory also considers that the confirmation hearing process was hopelessly flawed. Olivier Hoedeman concluded:
If ordinary people care to scavenge for any crumb of comfort from this charade, it is that the European Parliament has overwhelmingly voted to freeze the budget of the European Commission's problematic advisory groups, known formally as Expert Groups, for the second time in four years.
A group of cross-party MEPs tabled the amendment to withhold almost €4 million from the Commission budget for 2015, covering expert group expenses. It was voted through by all major groups. The conditions for its release relate to stakeholder balance, conflicts of interest and transparency.
Pascoe Sabido from CEO says:
When the Parliament released the original budget reserve in September 2012, they warned the Commission that if the dominant role of corporations did not improve, the budget would be refrozen.
Max Bank from LobbyControl, a steering committee member of ALTER-EU [1] says:
Evidence produced by ALTER-EU in 2013 showed that corporate interests occupied more seats than all other stakeholders combined in expert groups created since the original budget freeze was lifted, and in DG Taxation and Customs Union, this figure was almost 80 per cent. New evidence of all groups across all DGs shows the situation to be far worse, with business interests taking more than two thirds of all seats.
(Most of the information for this article was sourced from the CEO website: http://corporateeurope.org/ )
Colin Todhunter : Originally from the northwest of England, Colin Todhunter has spent many years in India. He has written extensively for the Deccan Herald (the Bangalore-based broadsheet), New Indian Express and Morning Star (Britain). His articles have also appeared in various other newspapers, journals and books. His East by Northwest website is at: http://colintodhunter.blogspot.com
Note
1] The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU) is a coalition of about 200 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, or blockage even, of urgently needed progress on social, environmental and consumer-protection reforms. Website: http://www.alter-eu.org/
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