Articles

Excessive corporate influence over policy-making remains a serious threat to the public interest across Europe and at the EU level, warns a new report by our partner organisation ALTER-EU.

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Corporate Europe Observatory shows how the past ten years of financial lobbying have left us vulnerable to future crises and costly bailouts. Despite their responsibility for the 2008 crash, the financial sector has successfully avoided major reform in the decade since - and has shaped new legislation with big loopholes and conditions similar to those that created the crash in the first place.

Ten years since the crisis - here is our wrap up of the financial lobby's role in causing the crisis and how they have since continued to fight back against people's demands for effective rules on financial markets.

The political climate in the Czech Republic has grown increasingly repressive following the election of oligarch Andrej Babiš as prime minister in October 2017. With the Czech civil society space squeezed tighter and tighter by Babiš's government, we want to help draw attention to the duress and threats under which many progressive organisations and media outlets now have to work.

Industry lobbyists are spending millions of euros to influence an upcoming EU decision on labelling titanium dioxide – found in everyday products like sunscreen – a “suspected carcinogen”. The lobbying is led by an unregistered trade association and a public relations consultancy; nonetheless, they appear to have the ear of member states and the European Commission.

From sunscreen to paint, sweets and toothpaste, titanium dioxide is a chemical whitener found in many everyday products. An ongoing EU process to classify the chemical as a “suspected carcinogen” when inhaled could lead to product warning labels. But hefty lobbying by the chemicals industry seems to be weakening the resolve of the member states taking the final decision.