30,000 lobbyists and counting: is Brussels under corporate sway? | World news | The Guardian
Today's Guardian explains how EU corporate lobbyists operate in the
Brussels bubble. Read about lobbying on tobacco, shale gas and digital
tech...
When the Polish MEP Róża Thun was elected five years ago, she thought
the job would be fairly straightforward. She hadn't reckoned with the
lobbyists.
Take mobile phone charges. She saw the fact that EU
citizens pay eye-watering sums in other EU states as an anomaly that
needed fixing. But it wasn't that simple. "We had telephone companies
and lobbyists who started to invade us," she recalls. "They obviously
didn't want to reduce roaming charges because it would hit them in the
pocket."
To stroll around the vast, ugly and permanent building
site that is Brussels' European district is to brush up against the
power of the lobbies. Every office block, every glass and steel
construction within a kilometre of the European commission, council and parliament is peopled by Europe's biggest corporate names.
Thousands
of companies, banks, law firms, PR consultancies and trade associations
are there to bend ears and influence the regulations and laws that
shape Europe's single market, fix trade deals, and govern economic and
commercial behaviour in a union of 507 million.
Lobbying
is a billion-euro industry in Brussels. According to Corporate Europe
Observatory, a watchdog campaigning for greater transparency, there are
at least 30,000 lobbyists in Brussels, nearly matching the 31,000 staff
employed by the European commission and making it second only to
Washington in the concentration of those seeking to affect legislation.
Lobbyists sign a transparency register run by the parliament and the
commission, though it is not mandatory.
Power point: the
European parliament is subject to intense pressure from corporate
interests, and many MEPs use their inside knowledge to take up lucrative
lobbying positions when they quit. Photograph: Michele Tantussi/Getty
Images
