Lobbying Europe to save the environment
Robert Allen takes a look at the bureaucrats who lend an ear to
profit-seeking industrialists
THIS week the locals in the vicinity of the Glen of the Downs in
county Wicklow have prepared a petition for their MEP Nuala Ahern
to hand into the EU. A grand gesture to make bureaucrats in
Brussels sit up and take notice of the destruction the Irish
government want to visit on this beautiful valley just to widen a
road.
But these are the same bureaucrats who are presently presiding
over grandiose plans for a TransEuropeanNetwork which will speed
commerce on its profiteering way along the roads, railways,
waterways and airways of Europe. To that end the Brussels and
Strasbourg bureaucrats are pouring EU cash into new roads, 12,000
kilometres of them, into expanding high-tech airports, into the
unblocking of waterways, into strong, durable bridges, into
space-age tunnels and into high-speed trains between Europe's
major cities - further disempowering local communities and small
businesses.
So is the European Union listening to the European Community?
Only to those with business suits, I'm afraid. It is the subtle,
behind closed-doors, activity that decides policy.
For some time now the largest transport infrastructure plan in
history has been gradually put in place - in Europe. Whose idea
was it? It was the suggestion of Europe's top industrialists who
decided they needed to improve transportation flow because it was
a barrier - to their economic growth.
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For some time now the largest transport infrastructure plan in
history has been gradually put in place - in Europe.
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So, policies that are affecting the lives of millions of people
all over Europe were actually put in place by industrialists
desperate for money and power, policies that perpetuate the
divide between rich and poor, and throw thousands onto the EC's
latest mountain of surplus produce - labour.
The industrialists have been able to achieve these seemingly
impressive coups because of the effectiveness of their ability,
to gain ``extremely privileged access to decision-makers, both at
the national and the European level''.
Known as the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT) this
group of powerful lobbyists came together in 1983 with the sole
purpose of manipulating European Union policy. More a political
force than a lobby group, the ERT were unique in the history of
parliamentary lobbying because they consisted of 45 executives of
multi-national companies.
The Corporate Europe Observatory, an Amsterdam based, non profit
foundation set up to monitor and report on the activities of
European corporations and their lobby groups has described the
ERT as:.
``More than just another lobby organisation trying to benefit from
the European integration process, the ERT was formed with the
express intention of reviving European integration and shaping it
to the preferences of European transnational corporations.''
The Observatory's report `Europe Inc: Dangerous Liaisons between
EU Institutions and Industry' is one of the first documents in
the public domain that seeks to explain why the past decade has
seen a shift in the European Union towards policies that have
become responsible for the low, painful disintegration of
peoples' livelihoods.
Europe Inc describes how corporations, from having had hardly any
contact with the European Commission throughout the 70s, appeared
to be put links in place overnight. Founded by Umberto Agnelli of
Fiat, Wisse Dekker of Philips and Pehr Gyllenhammer of Volvo the
ERT wasted no time preparing the ground for an internal market.
When they had achieved that, they moved swiftly onto the second
item on their agenda, a flawless transport system. In 1991 a
commitment to construct such a system was written into the
Maastrict Treaty. Earlier this year the Secretary-General of the
ERT, Keith Richardson, told the Europe Inc researchers that a lot
of Europe's new infrastructure was in place. ``The Channel Tunnel
has been built, the high-speed trains are being built, the
crossing from Scandinavia to Denmark is being built...''
Europe was being built alright, but it wasn't fast enough for the
ERT. Just before the 1992 Summit in Edinburgh, the ERT wrote to
heads of state calling for additional funding for the
Trans-European Network. The EU leaders obliged. An investment
fund worth seven billion ecu was set up.
Since then an estimated budget of 400 billion ecu has aided more
than 150 projects, at a pace that most people are oblivious to.
But the environmental damage is now becoming obvious all over
Europe as activists attempt to stop further destruction In 1995
Greenpeace Switzerland estimated that the improved transportation
network would contribute a 15%-18% increase in greenhouse gas
emissions. Other groups announced the imminent destruction of
around 60 natural sites of national and European importance.
Michael Smurfit is the sole Irish presence on the ERT, but you
can be sure he's not there for the wildbird soup, deer cutlets in
apricot sauce and chestnut icecream. Give him a call. Before you
ask him where he got his mandate from to speak on behalf of the
Irish people, ask him about the environmental destruction the
network is causing and the resulting social dislocation that will
ultimately result from a homogenised Europe. In fact why don't
you ask him if he'll take a petition in for you. He knows all the
right people.
Europe Inc is published by Corporate Europe Observatory, c/o A
SEED Europe Office, PO Box 92066, 1090 AB Amsterdam, The
Netherlands. E-mail: ceo@xs4all.nl