In a milestone win for civil society, the EU will withdraw from the climate-wrecking Energy Charter Treaty (or ECT). The ECT was designed in the 1990s to favour industry’s interests, and was a powerful weapon to obstruct the kind of phaseout of fossil fuels needed to avoid catastrophic climate change. It should never have existed in the first place. In this episode of EU Watchdog Radio, Joana Louçã talks to Pia Eberhardt, former campaigner and researcher at CEO, and Lucía Bárcena, Project Coordinator at the  Transnational Institute, or TNI, to celebrate the decision of the EU to finally ..read more

For the first time in seventeen years, the European Gas Conference was cancelled—or, at least, postponed. However, this did not stop CEO from travelling all the way to Vienna to meet with climate activists and campaigners at the People’s Summit, the counter-summit of the Gas Conference. This episode was recorded live in the capital city of Austria. Marcella Via spoke with CEO’s researchers and campaigners Pascoe Sabido and Belén Balayá about their views on the People’s Summit and the relevance of the work of the Fossil Free Politics coalition in this framework. You will also hear the voices of ..read more

Amazon is a frequent visitor to the EU Parliament. In January alone, it had nine meetings with MEPs. But when it refused to appear before the Employment Committee on a hearing on crucial issues concerning working conditions within its warehouses, it made MEPs from all party groups extremelly angry, and rightly so.  On 5 February, MEPs on the European Parliament’s Employment Committee sent an official letter to Roberta Metsola, the European Parliament President, urging the withdrawal of lobbying badges from the tech giant’s representatives, effectively barring them from the Parliament's co ..read more

It's one year since the Qatargate corruption scandal exploded across the EU institutions and a good time to review if and how things have changed in the Brussels Bubble. In this episode, Joana Louçã talks to Corporate Europe Observatory's researchers Olivier Hoedeman and Vicky Cann. WHO WE ARE This podcast is produced by CEO and Counter Balance. Both NGOs raise awareness on the importance of good governance in the EU by researching issues like lobbying of large and powerful industries, corporate capture of decision making, corruption, fraud, human rights violations in areas like Big Tech, agr ..read more

It's one year since the Qatargate corruption scandal exploded across the EU institutions and a good time to review if and how things have changed in the Brussels Bubble. In this episode, Joana Louçã talks to Corporate Europe Observatory's researchers Olivier Hoedeman and Vicky Cann. WHO WE ARE This podcast is produced by CEO and Counter Balance. Both NGOs raise awareness on the importance of good governance in the EU by researching issues like lobbying of large and powerful industries, corporate capture of decision making, corruption, fraud, human rights violations in areas like Big Tech, agr ..read more

As the European Commission’s current mandate draws to a close, some Commissioner’s are contemplating their next moves. One such politician is current Vice President Margrethe Vestager, who is campaigning to become the next president of the European Investment Bank (EIB). She is one of five potential candidates who will take over from current EIB president Werner Hoyer at the end of this year, with the successor to be chosen in the coming months. The EIB is the largest multilateral development bank in the world, and plays a crucial role in the various investment programmes being implemented by ..read more

As the European Commission’s current mandate draws to a close, some Commissioner’s are contemplating their next moves. One such politician is current Vice President Margrethe Vestager, who is campaigning to become the next president of the European Investment Bank (EIB). She is one of five potential candidates who will take over from current EIB president Werner Hoyer at the end of this year, with the successor to be chosen in the coming months. The EIB is the largest multilateral development bank in the world, and plays a crucial role in the various investment programmes being implemented by ..read more

In this new episode of EU Watchdog Radio Hans van Scharen talks to UN rapporteur on the right to Food Michael Fakhri and Political scientist Yiorgos Vassalos. They discuss rising food prices and hunger, the link with financial markets and the lack of political will to curb the influence of financial speculation with food commodities, which contribute to excessive food prices and thus hunger.    This podcast is a follow-up of episode 43 in which Fakhri explained how hunger is not an issue of sufficient production but of bad policies and political failure. An example of this is food s ..read more

In this new episode of the podcast EU Watchdog Radio, Joana Louçã talks to economist and trade unionist Frank Ey, and to Olivier Hoedeman and Moritz Neujeffski, co-authors of CEO's latest report: 30 Years of EU Single Market: Time to remove the obstacles to social-ecological transformation. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the creation of EU's Single Market, and to mark it, we have just launched a new report (and a board game!) showing how corporate interests have used Single Market rules to obstruct progressive social and environmental policies and regulations that might harm their pr ..read more

podcast 37 on Launch of Lobbyfacts with Lucy and Vicky Cann  ..read more