EU expert-adviesorganen onder toenemende invloed van bedrijfsleven (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Senior expert groups established by the European Commission to offer policy advice are not transparent, heavily skewed in favour of big business and give little weight to civil society perspectives, according to a report from environmentalists.
In a Friends of the Earth investigation published on Thursday (12 February) looking at the composition of seven high-level groups set up to make recommendations to the Enterprise and Industry Directorate General - essentially the commission's industry department, the green group calls for a moratorium on the creation of any new advisory bodies until tough new mechanisms ensuring balance are introduced.
Recommendations from expert groups often provide the framework for new legislative proposals from the commission, making their composition - ostensibly required to be a good mix of public officials, academics and non-governmental representatives - of vital importance to the future direction of European policies.
Authors of the report found that in two of the DG Enterprise high-level groups - one devoted to textiles and clothing and the other to 'Administrative Burdens' (tasked with minimising the regulation of business) - more than half the total membership consisted of representatives from industry.
In another four such groups - on chemicals, energy, 'agri-food' and the auto sector - more than half the non-governmental members came from the corporate world.
In only one high-level group - on pharmaceuticals - was the business view balanced with other perspectives.
The report is not the first time the high-level groups have been accused of corporate favouritism. Since 2006, the European Parliament has refused to participate in them, accusing the groups of similar bias, although the chamber's boycott of the process buckled somewhat with the creation of the latest high-level group - agri-food, joined by one centre-right MEP.
Friends of the Earth says that this pro-corporate bias in membership has led to a pro-corporate bias in policy recommendations. The textiles group and the automobile group - CARS 21 - delivered recommendations that "watered down or disregarded standards in the name of competitiveness," according to the report.
At the time of the creation of the cars advisory body, the European Consumers Organisation (BEUC), warned "[CARS 21] will be manipulated to be little more than a sounding board for industry special pleading."
In the Pharmaceuticals Forum - the one group studied not to be corporate dominated - five out of ten non-governmental participants came from Big Pharma and the biotech industry and the other five did not represent business interests. Nevertheless, even here, the only civil society group involved was the European Patients' Forum, whose membership fees cost a not-too-patient-friendly €5,000 and was backed by €337,000 in corporate sponsorship.
The report argues that the Pharmaceuticals Forum has produced advice that would open the door to US-style direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs, a move that across the Atlantic has resulted in health professionals such as doctors and pharmacists being bypassed as the drug companies market the likes of Viagra and Prozac on television the way fizzy drink producers market Coke and Pepsi.
In response, the report calls for a registry of high-level group membership and an archive of minutes of meetings held, the dissolution of the industry-dominated groups, and the end to the creation of any new groups until transparency and balance rules with real teeth can be established
Commission spokesman Mark Gray said that although the executive had yet to thoroughly read the report, "it is crucial that the commission use the expertise of industry when discussing the competitiveness of important European industrial sectors. High-level groups have a specific remit which is often limited in scope and time."
Privately, a senior commission official said the report was itself biased - but against industry.
"They only picked the high-level groups in DG Enterprise and Industry. It's curious that they did not have a look at the President's Advisory Group on Climate and the Environment, which is stuffed full of green groups and has almost no industry experts."
"In any case, it would be a bit bizarre if the groups that deal with industry did not have industry representation on them."
Answering the charge, Christine Pohl, the lead author of the report, said they focussed on this particular department because this was where the greatest number of groups had been established.
"It's great that some high-level groups are indeed balanced, but they all need to be balanced, and those that focus on industry most of all. Industry has a massive impact on the whole of society - with social, public health and environmental implications."
"Industry policy does not just affect industry," she added.
Report