Finance Watch – a lobby to break the lobbies

Publication date: 
vendredi, February 24, 2012
Author: 
Harald Schumann
Media title: 
Der Tagesspiegel

"What started it off was a phenomenon seen only after the financial crisis broke in autumn 2008. [...] At the same time, it emerged that the European Commission and its Internal Market Directorate General had been thoroughly infiltrated by the financial industry."

Excerpt: 

How far this went was uncovered by the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER EU), whose autumn 2009 report entitled A Captive Commission, described how then Acting Commissioner Charlie McCreevy had de facto outsourced law-making to vested interests. Half of Europe was outraged at the EU authorities relying on such one-sided information. In practice, though, no consequences flowed from that outrage.