International

As I write it is still not clear whether the member state government leaders will be able to reach an agreement on Greece. However that may be, what is clear is that the interests of big capital and financial institutions will be secured and that only when that is achieved might it be possible to discuss measures to help ordinary people. This fits into a well-known pattern: nepotism, which government leaders want to put an end to in Greece, is an everyday occurrence in Brussels. Now, new instruments provided by Transparency International and Politico.eu make it possible for anyone to see how things are set. They don’t provide a lot of laughs, but what they do offer are a number of clues by which you can unmask puppets of the multinationals such as Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group (ALDE/ADLE).

Transparency International (TI) has developed a new instrument. Styled EU Integrity Watch, it is accessible to all at http://www.integritywatch.eu/. An interactive version of this databank has been set up by the journalists of the website politico.eu at http://www.politico.eu/interactive/commissioner-meetings-transparency-lobbying-eu-interactive/

From these data it can be seen that of the five biggest organised lobbies, four represent major corporations: Business Europe (to which Dutch bosses’ group VNO-NCW is affiliated), Google, General Electric Company (GEC) and the European Chemical Industry Council. Only the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) manages to make the Top 5. The database also shows the outside jobs held by MEPs.  It turns out that Verhofstadt’s moonlighting earns him some €230.000 p.a. from a number of multinationals.

Those who shout the loudest against Tsipras and the Greek government turn out to have strong links with major corporations. European Commissioners see corporate lobbyists extremely frequently, while those from trade unions and consumer groups, to take two examples, are often ignored. You can’t generally speaking say that about Tsipras or Syriza. The whole discussion of the Greek crisis in is in my view certainly not about a struggle between ‘lazy’ Greeks and ‘thrifty’ northern Europeans. Tsipras is obliged to pitch his socialist ideas against an entire battalion of Eurocrats and other powerful individuals who dance to big capital’s tune. Any change of course is a danger to them, with neoliberalism having had a high time of it in Brussels for more than twenty-five years. 

We must not be allowed to see any example of a non-neoliberal government enjoying success. Things could, however, be different. If Syriza’s victory in Greece was followed by victories for its sister parties elsewhere in Europe, then it could just be that instead of puppets we could get more and more democratic politicians. Even if today things don’t look to be going so well, that’s the direction in which I hope to see it go; with, if only this can be achieved, the replacement of our own leading national puppets Rutte and Dijsselbloem, before the end of the year.