{"id":11593,"date":"2022-12-15T15:41:41","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T13:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=11593"},"modified":"2022-12-15T15:41:43","modified_gmt":"2022-12-15T13:41:43","slug":"the-european-institutional-building-facilitates-endemic-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=11593","title":{"rendered":"The European Institutional Building Facilitates Endemic Corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is assumed that in the EU there are strict rules to avoid forms of undue influence by financial interests. Of course, in practice it sometimes turns out to be the opposite: these rules only “regulate”, but certainly do not suppress corruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most characteristic example is the ongoing practice of “revolving doors”, i.e. the way in which officials of the Union apparatus end up in particularly well-paid positions in the private sector, in which they transfer their experience to facilitate the relevant businesses in the to secure more favorable arrangements.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The case of Nellie Cruz<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most egregious recent case was that of Commissioner Nellie Kruse. A veteran of the Dutch political scene, Kruse in the 1990s had turned mainly to the private sector. In 2004 he became Competition Commissioner in the first Barroso Commission, while in the second Barroso Commission he took over the portfolio of the Digital Agenda and a position of Vice-President of the commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Completing her two terms at the Commission, Kruse waited for the 18-month period, during which former Commissioners are required to seek the Commission’s permission before undertaking any activity barred from lobbying interests, to run out, to take on a senior position in the Uber company. For this reason and throughout this period the former commissioners continue to receive half of the salaries they received when they were in the Commission, so that they do not need to immediately look for work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In July 2022, the so-called Uber Files were released, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists based on information provided to the Guardian newspaper. The data included 124,000 documents that described how the multinational operated and especially how it tried to influence governments and European institutions, given the opposition from several countries to such “applications”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the details revealed was that Nelly Cruz and her staff had several contacts with Uber as early as 2013 and that the company was concerned that these contacts would also become public. After all, throughout the transition period Cruz in one way or another continued to support Uber’s positions. In addition, internal Uber documents showed that as early as when he was still a Commissioner, the company had decided that it would offer Cruz a higher position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lobbyists rule in Brussels<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number of people involved in lobbying in Brussels is impressive. They are estimated at 25,000, far more than there are in Washington. Of these, 7,500 are accredited to the European Parliament. They start from representatives of individual companies and industry organizations and end up with states and their governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not unrelated to the way the EU works. Europe is a large market, access to which, and the rules by which it operates, are largely to do with regulatory decisions and regulations of the European communities. From the specifications for dairy products, or the operating conditions of platforms like Uber, to the supply of natural gas, the fields are many. And the interests too great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Typically, the European Union has fairly strict rules that oblige MEPs as well as committee officials to declare all income they receive (beyond their Euro salary), as well as not to accept hospitality gifts exceeding 150 euros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in practice it is clear that favorable arrangements are often exchanged for various ‘gifts’. And “revolving doors” are a prime example.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Revolving Door Problem<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem with revolving doors is precisely that European Community officials then take it upon themselves to make it easier for businesses to bypass the resistance of European institutions or to secure favorable arrangements for specific businesses or organized interests. They are effectively exploiting their knowledge of how the EU works in order to advance interests. And where they promoted \u2013 supposedly \u2013 for years the interest of Europe and European citizens now they seek to do the exact opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this explains how big business “recruits”. The example of the high-tech business sector is very typical. Over 70% of Google and Facebook \/ Meta lobbyists previously worked for the European institutions or member state governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Millions for lobbying<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How this whole situation creates an endemic condition of corruption in the EU is also shown by the amounts declared by large companies for legal lobbying practices. In 2022 the 50 companies with the largest relevant expenses had lobbying budgets of \u20ac120 million. Companies such as Bayer AG and Apple have budgets of 6.5 million euros, while Google and Meta have budgets of 6 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we talk about such legitimate budgets for exerting influence essentially on the European institutions, one can assume that there will always be the temptation for even more “persuasive” influence, i.e. through “black” political money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is assumed that in the EU there are strict rules to avoid forms of undue influence by financial interests. Of course, in practice…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[818,390],"tags":[378,25,3956,3959],"class_list":["post-11593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-politics","tag-corruption","tag-eu","tag-lobbying","tag-qatar-gate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11593"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11597,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11593\/revisions\/11597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}