Agribusiness lobbying in Brussels involves biotech, food, animal feed, agrofuel and pesticide producers targeting decision makers to weaken regulations or to get subsidies.
CEO’s work on agribusiness lobbying has focused for instance on stopping the EU’s 10% agrofuel target, exposing lobbying by the food industry to weaken food labeling, and by the animal feed industry to weaken GMO rules, questioning the industry bias of EU food safety agency EFSA, and highlighting how private industry-NGO initiatives like the Round Table on Responsible Soy provide a greenwashing opportunity for the GMO industry. We have also filed a complaint with the European Ombudsman about the industry-dominated European Biofuels Technology Platform (EBFTP), which advises the European Commission on how to spend millions of research funding to further develop agrofuels.
CEO's campaign on climate and energy challenges the corporate capture of decision-making on climate policies both at the EU and UN level. Corporate lobbying has resulted in a combination of weak CO2 reduction measures, the dominance of carbon trading and other dangerous pseudo-solutions such as agrofuels and nuclear energy, allowing large corporations to continue emitting and profiting from a new market.
The EU's trade policy aims to increase the competitiveness of European companies - by guaranteeing them access to the world's raw materials, opening new markets through free trade deals and by making sure that regulations at home do not stand in their way. CEO is challenging this craze for competitiveness, which we believe advances the interests of corporate Europe at the expense of social and environmental justice.
Brussels is at the centre of EU decision-making and as such attracts thousands of lobbyists, promoting the interests of big business. Easily outnumbering and outspending public interest groups, corporate lobbyists are also given privileged access by the European institutions. The emerging lobbycracy results in flawed policies that put commercial interests above those of people and the environment and undermines the very basis of democracy.
Brussels is home to one of the highest concentrations of political power in the world and the revolving door is one of the most important ways in which lobbyists can influence the political agenda in Brussels. When senior European decision-makers leave office and go straight into lobby jobs, or when lobbyists join the EU institutions, the risk of significant conflicts of interest is great, undermining democratic, public-interest decision-making. CEO is working with the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU) to challenge the revolving door and to demand that it is effectively regulated.
Everybody on our planet has the right to water. CEO's campaign to counter water privatisation and promote alternatives at EU level.