The Brussels Business

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People dont understand ...

... what the European Union is.

They dont understand

how it is governed.

They dont know who are

the people who runing it.

But they know that they were

not chosen by the people.

And so, when they see the results

less than perfect, they say, ...

... 'Who do we blame?'

And they dont know

who to blame ...

... because they dont know

who these people are.

When I started out as a young

environmental activist, ...

... I had no idea that I should end up as

watch-dog in the Brussels machinery.

But I was stunned

to the discover ...

... how fragile political

decision-making process is.

And to realize how easily

it can be manipulated.

There is a dark force

behind this machinery.

An entire industry

operating in the shadow.

Often in secrecy

and very confidential.

This industry is

the lobby industry.

For 20 years now, I've

been fighting to uncover ...

... who are these people who are

pulling the strings of the EU decisions.

How do they operate?

And how they are linked

to the EU political elite?

Hello?

Oh yes, good evening.

I'd like to speak

to Rafael, please.

Oh, he's not there. Listen, I'd like

to leave a message for tomorrow.

I just want to confirm

the meeting ...

... that we have fixed.

My name is Mr. Kerneis.

Pascal Kerneis. K, E, R, N, E, I, S.

Yes, from the European

Services Forum, ESF.

Yes, and we have

meeting tomorrow, but ...

... I did get time today to

confirm. I want to do it now.

Is that ok? Yes?

Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

Well, Brussels is a small city,

kind of a province city, ...

... but that is

only the surface.

And then, when you know

a bit further about it, ...

... Brussels is a

really good place.

This is where the business taking place.

This is where legislation start.

I think that the figure is

around 80% of all legislations ...

... which are touching

direct life of EU citizens, ...

... is actually initiated

here in Brussels.

If you look at

place Schuman, ...

... the epicenter of political

power in Europe, ...

... you see the European

Commission on the one side ...

... next to the

Council of EU.

And all around that square

you'll find lobby offices.

Most of them belonging to

big multinational corporations.

You'll find them also

in all side streets.

All over to the European

Parliament and beyond.

You'll find the lobby headquarters

of large corporations.

You'll find industry

lobby groups and their ...

... lobby operations been orchestrated

from the offices in that area.

2500 lobby structures

are based in Brussels.

15 thousand lobbyists.

The second biggest

lobby industry in the world.

Only Washington DC is bigger.

So, EU legislation is ...

... complicated and goes

through a lot of stages.

It always start with a

European Commission.

They take new initiatives

for legislation, for policies ...

... and it goes through the institutions.

Parliament, the Council of Ministers.

And from the moment that

the European Commission ...

... take very first steps in developing

new legislation or new policies, ...

... Industry wants to be

there to influence it.

Administration is not

really for me, so I really ...

... want to have the

possibility to go and work ...

... for the private sector,

where I'll decide myself ...

... what I will do.

I thought that is much more ...

... something for me.

And then I discovered a business

around the European institutions.

And I started

to be a lobbyist.

You know, we ...

Everybody believe about ...

... the lawmakers

are institutions.

A institution in the

European Union is about ...

... The Commission, the Council of

Ministers and the European Parliament.

But there is also another

world behind that, which is ...

... how to influence

the institutions?

To make a text.

To give a good idea. To ...

... propose amandmans, to

try to find you in the text ...

... depending on the interests of

people who are willing to push for.

In the mid '90s ...

... we have come across so may examples

of EU policies that are basically ...

... captured by the industry

and industry lobbying.

We felt it was really

fundamental problem here ...

... the influence of industry

is excessive. And ...

... we decided to setup a group

to document examples ...

... and to start developing a strategy

to rollback this excessive influence.

That's how it started.

In the early '90s I was working as

enviromental campaigner within NGO ...

... based in Amsterdam,

cooperating with other ...

... enviromental NGO's

across Europe.

One day in the summer of 1993.,

I remember that fax came in ...

... the fax machine in the office and

it came from the south of France ...

... from local

environment group.

The group was

fighting against ...

... motorway that was planned

to go through the valley ...

... in the area they lived.

In the valley of D'Aspe.

Ecologically very important area.

Very beautifull area.

The group asked if we knew

more about the role of the EU ...

... and specifically the European

Commission in this motorway project.

So we started

looking into this.

We discovered that this

motorway project ...

... was part of something called

Trans-European Networks.

Trans-European networks

was the biggest ...

... infrastructure project

in the history with ...

... estimated budget

of 400 billion euro's.

Friends from Sweden

came up with another detail.

There was an influential lobby group

behind this and they asked us ...

... 'Do you know of ERT, the European

Round Table of Industrialists?'

I did not.

I started digging for more

information about ERT.

I went to our archive

and I didnt find anything.

I started diving into the alien

world of business press.

Newspapers like the Financial

Times, The ecconomist, ...

... German business

newspapers.

And we've found

references to a new report ...

... that have been published

shortly before, called ...

... 'Reshaping Europe'.

That sounded

rather interesting.

And we've ordered this report from

European Round Table headquarters.

I did not believe that

I would get anything ...

... but a few days later

a big brown envelope ...

... arrived in

my letterbox.

Three booklets

were inside.

I took the first two

publications, ...

... 'Missing networks',

'Missing links'.

Gone through them.

Something is strange about them.

Euro Tunnel

Scanlink

Pyreneas corridor

Somehow they

looked soo familiar.

I went to the archive.

'TEN project'

by the Commission.

I went through the papers.

I compared them. Back and forth.

What a striking similarity.

Projects are almost identical.

The Commission seems

copy/pasted ERT proposals.

Now I was

really curious.

I took 'Reshaping Europe'.

The authors,

three CEO's.

Jerome Monod, Pehr

Gyllenhamar and Wisse Dekker.

Living in the Nederlands

I knew Wisse Dekker.

He was the head of the Philips. One of

the largest companies in the country.

Pehr Gyllenhamar was the head

of Volvo, car producing company.

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