Lobbying Europe

Brussels, home to the European Commission, has also become home to "over 15,000 lobbyists (more than one for every European Commission official) but just 10 per cent of these represent environmental and social groups," according to a recently-released report. "A massive industry of corporate lobbying has grown up in Brussels with overwhelming influence on European trade policy. Yet the relationship between the European Commission and the corporate lobby is almost entirely unregulated, unaccountable and conducted behind closed doors," says Dave Timms of the UK-based World Development Movement, one of the groups that produced the report.