The Brussels Business

The Brussels Business - Who controls the European Union? is a documentary by Frederick Moser and Matthieu Lietaert about the lack of transparency and the influence of lobbyists on the decision making process in Brussels, the capital of the European Union.

  • 2.1 Instrumentation
  • 3.1 premieres
  • 3.2 television broadcasting
  • 3.3 marketing
  • 3.4 Awards
  • 3.5 reviews

Action

The film omitted a judgmental comment or the voice of the interviewer. The guests (see Instrumentation ) express themselves directly in interviews, accompanied by a camera crew or from off to certain issues and topics.

Pascal Kerneis was for nine years for the European Banking Federation ( European Banking Federation ) worked. He created the European Services Forum (ESF ) as a counterpart to the European Round Table ( ERT), as for the service industry at that time there was no common advocacy.

From the perspective of Leon Brittan was a joint advocacy of the service industry, as it already existed in the U.S., and the EU is a necessary step, because the European Commission has to rely on the ideas and proposals of the lobbyists.

As managing director of the ESF Pascal Kerneis represents around 80 % of the resident in the EU services exporters and investors and approximately 60 million employees with a turnover of 50 % of EU GDP. Lobbying he referred to as " networks " because it 's all about the contact between people. The work of lobbyists he essentially defined as influencing bills when working towards the amendment of legislation and as targeted placement of ideas and proposals. The common goal with international companies is the market opening and the removal of trade barriers. The advantages of lobbyists in Brussels are, firstly, that a majority of the laws for the European nation-states comes from Brussels and that international agreements which are signed by the EU, are binding for the European countries. Lobbying is necessary, in his view, because the governments are dependent on direct information industry and service enterprises.

Olivier Hoedeman refers to the process of decision-making in the EU as fragile and easily manipulated, behind the operates a veritable industry of lobbyists in secret. After Washington, D.C. acts in Brussels, with an estimated 2500 lobbying organizations and lobbyists 15000 the second largest lobby industry. Focal point for lobbyists, the European Commission in the first place. For 20 years he pursues the question, who are the lobbyists that influence Commission decisions, how to buy it and in what form they are the elite of the EU.

Emergence and influence of the ERT

Early 90s was active as an environmentalist Olivier Hoedeman in an NGO. They were aware of a number of EU regulations, which were determined directly by the industry. Then they formed a group, the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO ), with the aim to document such cases and to develop a strategy to suppress the excessive influence of lobbyists.

In the summer of 1993, they discovered that behind the project was " Trans-European Networks " of the European Round Table. The European Commission's program was merely a copy of the proposal of the ERT.

Étienne Davignon, however, criticized early on that there was not enough contact between the Commission and the industry. With important chiefs of European companies, he founded the ERT, in collaboration with the then Commission President Jacques Delors.

After an annual meeting of the CEO in December 1993 to occupy the office of the ERT. Keith Richardson, former Secretary General of the ERT, she let what gave the group the opportunity to copy some documents that showed the influence of ERT on EU decisions and close cooperation. With the help of the Press list of the ERT they faxed one of them written press release about the activities of the ERT to the international media, however, evoked an extremely low media interest. According to Olivier Hoedeman the ERT tried especially the single market, monetary union and introduce a flexible labor market and enforce austerity measures and infrastructure projects.

Since the U.S. mainly ignorance or uncertainty prevailed over the single market program, the political scientist Maria Green Cowels for the ERT interested. The great influence of the ERT has been confirmed by her in a work that is also based on documents of the ERT, which gave her access Keith Richardson. After having been located in the 80 years economically behind that of the United States and Japan, was the project European networks among others by Pehr Gyllenhammar, the former chief of Volvo and a founding member of the ERT, as envisaged a kind of Marshall Plan for Europe. The clout and power of ERT showed a fax of the former heads of Philips Wisse Dekker, which he sent to all heads of state shortly before the signing of the Single European Act. In the so-called " Dekker telegram", he wrote that a possible consequence of the non-introduction of the internal market was the relocation of businesses.

The CEO summarized the results of further investigations in a book entitled "Europe, Inc." along which they released at the same time the EU summit in Amsterdam, but met with no interest in the media.

According to Pascal Kerneis the internal market in Europe led not only to an economically strong Europe, but also increased the political Europe's influence in the international community, as a strong representation of European companies in Brussels offer a unified positions and demands of the EU, for example, against the United States, only.

Formation of civil society resistance

The Multilateral Agreement on Investment, the industry went according to Lori Wallach one step further. The aim of this agreement was to prevent the government from regulating large corporations, capital and investment. From activist groups, a public discussion was suggested for the first time.

Accompanied by great media interest, which can formulate civil society resistance prevented the Ministerial Conference of the Economic and Trade Ministers of the WTO in Seattle in 1999.

Success of the CEO: the Transparency Register

After another futile attempts of the CEO, in the EU to create more transparency of the activities of lobbyists and regulate the influence of these, they found in Siim Kallas a supporter who launched the European Transparezinitiative in winter 2004 /05. Probably blocked the Think Tank " Friends of Europe " initiative, so that in 2008 a transparency register was introduced, in which lobbyists can enter voluntarily.

Craig Holman, who in the U.S. the bill " Honest Leadership and Open Government Act" earned, which provides a similar register, and was enforced after the corruption scandal involving Jack Abramoff, warns not to play down the extent and influence of lobbyists in Brussels. For one acts the lobby of American corporations in Brussels and on the other hand, such a corruption scandal in the EU is not excluded.

Think tanks in Brussels

According to Olivier Hoedeman, the lack of a European public debate on the emergence of think tanks, which act as forums for interest groups and companies expressing their views and demands. Problematic think tanks are to the effect that they are usually financially dependent on the company. In general, think tanks and research institutes are set up directly by corporations who publish studies, the results are congruent with the interests of corporations.

Financial crisis and lobbying

Olivier Hoedeman and Erik Wesselius criticize the actions of the Commission President Barroso, who used a panel of experts to solve the crisis, but mainly consists of board members of large U.S. and European banks.

Olivier Hoedeman raises the question of whether not the enforced by lobbyists liberalization and deregulation were the cause of the crisis.

Pascal Kerneis finally underlines the need for clear rules and laws.

Production

Occupation

  • Pascal Kerneis, Managing Director of European Services Forum
  • Olivier Hoedeman, employees of Corporate Europe Observatory
  • Erik Wesselius of Corporate Europe Observatory staff
  • Keith Richardson, Secretary General of the European Round Table. (1988-1998)
  • Maria Green Cowels, a political scientist at the American University in Washington, DC
  • Viscount Etienne Davignon, EU Industry Commissioner (1977-1985), Member of the European Round Table (1986-2001)
  • Sir Leon Brittan, EU trade commissioner (1993-1999)
  • Lori Wallach, activist, member of Public Citizen. Washington, D.C.
  • Craig Holman, Lobby reformer, member of Public Citizen. Washington, D.C.
  • Siim Kallas, Vice- President of the European Commission

Reception

Premieres

The movie was released on March 16, 2012 first in Austrian cinemas and on 24 July 2012 in Germany. In Brussels, the film itself was on display from April 19, 2012 in theaters.

Television broadcasting

The documentary was launched on January 27, 2013 at 23:05 clock on first ORF 2, on February 12, 2013 at 20.16 clock on Arte. Repetitions at the species found on February 24, 2013 at 1:35 clock and on March 5, 2013 at 09:45 clock.

Marketing

Awards

Reviews

"In the new documentary thriller The Brussels Business, the Austrian director Friedrich Moser and the Belgian Co-Autor/Regisseur Matthieu Lietaert take a look behind the scenes of the past in Brussels center of power of the EU and cover the running secretly influence exercised by business corporations on the political process within the European internal market. While representatives of different interest groups come about lobbying to speak, contributes mainly enriched with power production of the documentary to let appear the dry matter of the complex, political events in Brussels interesting and understandable. "

"It's Lietaert Moser and not to show how lobbyists working in Brussels. For this they have also focused too much on the industry. Bar groups such as Greenpeace no lobbying? Moser and Lietaert guilty party that the EU has developed differently than they - the two authors of this film - would seem to welcome it. Whether they can imagine that many Europeans see it differently? "Was it naive to have a European dream? " It says at the end. "Was it naive to have our European dream? ", It should read well. "

2012 in film Screenplay Film score Service (economics) Bill (law)
769003
de