International

Thanks to lobbying watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) there is now a website where you can see what, for example, former European Commission president Jose Barroso, or his right-hand woman Vivianne Reding is currently up to. And guess what: the revolving door is in full swing. Thanks to their networking in the world of business, Brussels Europhiles needn’t fear that they’ll be out of work for too long. Potential conflicts of interest are subject to the mildest of controls. It is for this reason that the transparency network in the European Parliament will be going in hard against this revolving door between the world of politics and that of corporate business.

You could not take your eyes off it. Today one-and-a-half million people demonstrated in the streets of Paris, demonstrated for freedom. This was impressive. It’s Europe’s best side, the Europe of values that we hold in common and that we will not allow to be taken away by extremists, whatever their plumage. Unfortunately there’s another side to Europe: unrelenting neoliberalism, commercialisation, the decline of solidarity with those who have less than others. What would be good would be millions of people protesting in Brussels to demand an end to an icy cold, neoliberal society. That’s what I call freedom.