Barroso
administration: Golden medal in serving interests
A
research by the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO)
“Through
the course of the crisis, attempts by corporations and corporate
lobby groups to influence EU policies have probably been more
successful than ever, in part due to a close relationship with the
Commission.”
“Corporate
Europe Observatory has gathered a lot of evidence over time and
covering many different areas that shows how the Commission is easily
captured by corporate interests. This report is an attempt to produce
a condensed version of how the Commission has come to act on behalf
of corporations over the past five years, focusing on climate
policies, agriculture and food, finance, economic, and fiscal
policies.”
8
- REFITting the rules to suit business
Key
findings
“More
recently, REFIT (Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme),
launched in 2012, is the most significant current attempt to roll
back regulation, and it seems that the Commission is now making
serious progress on its agenda – to the detriment of the
environment and labour rights. To spearhead the initiative, the
Commission formed a 'High Level Group on Administrative Burdens',
headed by German conservative Edmund Stoiber, to advise the
Commission on the development of the initiative. While Edmund Stoiber
himself was proved to have lobbied on behalf of the tobacco industry,
the group as a whole raised a more general concern: that 9 out of 16
members represented big business interests.”
“The
REFIT is seen as a major threat to workers’ rights and safety at
work by, among others, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).
In a campaign dubbed 'Rethinking REFIT' with the slogan, 'Working
rights are not red tape, Mr. Barroso', the trade union body has gone
to some length to prevent the REFIT agenda from encroaching on labour
rights. But the Commission seems adamant and has, for instance,
withdrawn a proposal for a directive on musculoskeletal disorders and
the revision of a directive on carcinogens, considered 'the two key
legislative challenges regarding workers’ health and safety' by the
ETUC. In addition, the Commission has hinted it intends to exempt
small and medium size enterprises from the scope of EU rules on
safety at work, listed in documents as one of the top ten most
burdensome EU laws.”
“The
Commission’s REFIT programme is targeting environmental legislation
as well, raising serious concerns among environmental NGOs. In
October 2013, three organisations – the EEEF, the European
Environmental Bureau and BirdLife – sent a letter to the heads of
governments of member states of the EU, warning them against the
intentions of the Commission on key pieces of environmental
legislation, set to be sidelined due to the REFIT programme. In the
letter targeting the Commission’s REFIT programme, the three
organisations cited the Commission for threatening the 'withdrawal of
proposals for directives on soil and on access to environmental
justice'. Since then, the Commission has indeed frozen the directive
on soil.”
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