Articles

The EU member state vote on the EU-Japan trade agreement is close, but not all interest groups had an equal say when the deal was hashed out. Official figures from the European Commission show that big business had many more meetings with the EU trade negotiators than small businesses, trade unions and other civil society actors did.

The plastics industry mounted a significant lobby campaign to influence the European Commission’s recent Plastics Strategy. Industry is now seeking to unpick or undermine key elements of the strategy through lacklustre or non-existing voluntary commitments, or outright opposition. With the Commission likely to publish its proposal to tackle single-use plastic products any day, will it adopt an ambitious approach towards binding regulations on industry?

Following the Cambridge Analytica affair and the massive leak of 87 million people’s data revealed earlier this year, Facebook is facing unprecedented scrutiny of its business model. Regulators must stop treating the social media giant as a trusted partner and better protecting EU citizens' digital rights.

Thanks to bottom-up pressure the European Union stepped back from supporting Trump and his big polluters’ agenda, but fell short of backing calls for a conflict of interest policy at the UN climate talks.

Corporate Europe Observatory is in mourning over the unexpected death of Roel van den Bosch, our financial administrator, appreciated colleague and friend.

AirBnB and its allies are lobbying the EU to fight measures to protect affordable housing in cities across Europe. Our new report “UnFairbnb” looks at the way in which their Brussels lobbying undermines cities’ ability to regulate the AirBnB model for holiday rentals.

Tackling conflicts of interest at the UN climate talks is up for negotiation: should fossil fuel interests be allowed to participate at these conferences, or even in climate policy-making in general?