International

An inventory conducted by the SP’s team in the European Parliament has revealed that it’s extremely difficult for real experts to be appointed to the so-called expert groups which advise the European Commission on legislative and other measures. Instead, the near-thousand groups are peopled in the main by lobbyists from major corporations. As SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong says, ‘Social organisations invariably lack funds while the big corporations can afford to hire lobbyists to get their voices heard. This has got to change.’

Prevention is better than cure

De Jong will use this morning’s debate on the issue to urge improvements to the rules on reimbursement of expenses for these ‘experts’. “All real costs incurred by a participant, such as for research and preparation, must be reimbursed, because otherwise you can never count on a well-prepared contribution from, for example, an independent university-based researcher or an expert whose knowledge is based on practical experience, such as a shopkeeper, or a company doctor.” The possibility of such people participating is reduced by endless European rules, which should be rationalised. Big corporations can perhaps work well enough with these but they create insuperable problems for workers on the shop floor and for small businesses. As De Jong notes, “What you can say here is ‘prevention is better than cure’. Bad laws cost society much more than it would to reimburse experts for their preparation and other work.”

In addition to the lack of clarity when it comes to compensation, De Jong has other complaints regarding the working of the expert groups. He intends to draw the attention of Maros Sefkovic, European Commissioner responsible for relations between Commission and Parliament, to the refusal to allow Greenpeace to be represented at a meeting of the expert group charged with looking into the storage of nuclear waste, despite the fact that the expert group in question listed Greenpeace as one the participants. De Jong will also ask the Commissioner to look into putting an end to the problem of conflict of interests on the part of some experts. Finally, he believes that all of the Commission’s various departments – known as Directorates General – should apply the rules in the same manner, which various interest groups argue is not currently the case.