30 April 2020
Source: Corporate Europe Observatory
Diving into corporate lobbying at EU level during the COVID-19 pandemic
They have found that lobbyists from a wide range of industries are opportunistically using the crisis to their advantage, and re-packaging old lobby demands: from delaying or killing regulations, to securing public bailouts while avoiding conditions. It is more crucial than ever that EU policy-makers defend the public interest and refuse to allow the crisis response to be co-opted by self-interested corporate lobbies.
Examples cover efforts to delay the Green New Deal, carmakers targeting C02 emissions, airlines fighting environmental taxes, banks wanting a pause on post-crisis safety measures, defence and civil aviation asking for regulatory relief, medical devices industry achieving delays in new testing and transparency; the list goes on.
The pandemic is also testing the limits of the EU’s weak transparency rules which make it hard for journalists, NGO’s and citizens to monitor the level of lobbying taking place…
Full story here – https://corporateeurope.org/en/2020/04/coronawash-alert
On social media – https://twitter.com/corporateeurope/status/1255778291371380738
