WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE ANTI-INDUSTRY LOBBYISTS IN 2015

Their purpose is to expose and challenge the so-called privileged access and influence enjoyed by corporations and their lobby groups in EU policy making. They particularly attack lobbying or lobbyists if they come from industry . They do not attack NGO lobbying campaigns, or NGO activists that take positions in governments.  They lobby against corporate lobbyists at the height of EU policy debates.

They oppose what they see as large, multi-national corporations having unregulated political power, exercised through trade agreements and deregulated financial markets. Specifically, they accuse corporations of seeking to maximize profit at the expense of work safety conditions and standards, labor hiring and compensation standards, environmental conservation principles, and the integrity of national legislative authority, independence and sovereignty.

 Their programme for 2015 includes the following:

1. Wider struggle against corporate capture of political decision-making.
2. Stepping research and campaign work against TTIP, focusing on key problem issues such as corporate investor-to-state rights (ISDS) and so-called “regulatory cooperation”, which would allow industry lobby groups (according to them) push for lowering of standards on both sides of the Atlantic.
3. Demanding stronger lobbying transparency and ethics rules to help curb corporate influence
4. Demanding far stricter conflict of interest rules to make it harder for ex-Commissioners and MEPs to go through the revolving door into industry lobbying jobs.
5. Campaign to hold Commission President Juncker to his promise of replacing the failing voluntary lobby transparency register with a mandatory register.
6. Enabling citizens easy access to hard facts about corporate lobbying in EU capital Brussels.
7. In the run-up and during the Paris summit, expose and challenge the role of dirty energy industry trying to prevent the European Commission and the UN from endorsing effective climate action.