International

I am frequently asked why the SP puts such an emphasis on the Brussels lobby culture. It’s surely a democratic right to lobby for what you want to see. Of course that’s the case, but in Brussels it’s lobbyists who have ensured that corporate capital calls the shots. When it comes to the trade and investment treaty with the US, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), on which so much is riding, neither an ordinary member of the public nor any social organisation had sought such a treaty, but the corporate lobby had been pushing the idea for years, not by promoting a broad social debate on the matter, but in secret, in backrooms and corridors. By fighting back against the pervasive lobby culture, we are trying to put the public back in the driving seat, as is fitting in a democracy.

Foto: SP

There is currently a wave of activity involving NGOs which promote transparency. Transparency International (TI) has just published a report on the influence of lobbyists in Europe, while ALTER-EU is working in various ways to combat the corporate domination of the European Commission’s advisory expert groups. ALTER-EU is also making proposals for amendments to the Code of Conduct for MEPs and for the establishment of a compulsory lobby register. On 29th April we will be launching our transparency intergroup in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, with contributions including a talk from Alex Brenninkmeijer, the Dutch member of the European Court of Auditors, who has worked like no other for transparency in Brussels.

How necessary all of this is can be shown, for example, from the negotiations over the TTIP. It is increasingly evident that the TTIP’s advantages are impossible to explain. Studies which purport to show that the creation of a single, massive internal market with the US would produce a modicum of economic growth and employment are countered by those which warn of widespread social misery. Supporters have responded by pointing increasingly to geopolitical considerations: the EU and US together would be an extremely powerful presence in the world. But this isn’t the sort of talk you get from the man or woman in the street, it’s what you hear bubbling up from below the surface of the boardrooms of multinationals. These people see the entire world as a single market. It was their lobbyists who ensured that these negotiations would begin. The worst is that their influence on government is so great that the last time the heads of government gathered for a European Council meeting, the possibility was discussed that the member states themselves would lobby for the TTIP: government leaders as free lobbyists for the multinationals. What could be crazier?

We have important weapons to counter this persistent lobby culture: more transparency, a stronger Code of Conduct, and the enforcement of balanced representation of all interests, precisely the demands lodged this week by TI. And for the SP group, these represent a permanent priority. In this, we are winning ever more support and this convinces us that we can win. In the end it’s always the contender that can’t stand the heat that winds up losing.