European Policy Centre

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EPC in Action

Corporate Europe Observatory report:

"We are action oriented and we believe that business must be more involved in public policies." [1]

The Centre, as the EPC calls itself, was established in January 1997 by the trio of Stanley Crossick, godfather of Brussels lobbying; [2] Max Kohnstamm, former vice president of the Jean Monnet Action Committee; and John Palmer, former European editor of The Guardian. [3] The EPC defines its mission as "contributing to the construction of Europe", and to achieve this it "encourages a debate among all significant interest groups and channels the results to policy-makers". It makes no secret of placing "special emphasis on strengthening the interface of government with business". [4]

The EPC's bias towards industry is well reflected not only in the composition of its advisory board, which together with the advisors' team helps the three founders run the Centre, but also in its membership. The Centre claims to include trade unions, but in fact the only representative is Emilio Gabaglio, secretary-general of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), well-known for its constructive approach towards neoliberal European Union policies.

There are no other representatives of 'civil society' involved. However, the board does include six European parliamentarians, five former directors-general and a vice president of the European Commission, journalists from newspapers such as Le Monde and the Financial Times, corporate directors from Philips and Mars, and influential industrialists such as Peter Sutherland (former European commissioner and GATT director and current chairman of British Petroleum and Goldman Sachs International); the former and current ERT secretary generals Keith Richardson [5] and Wim Philippa; UNICE secretary general Dirk Hudig, and Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa from the executive board of the European Central Bank. The EPC enjoys significant financial support from its corporate members such as ABB, BAT, BP, British Telecom and Solvay -- all members of the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT) -- and other large corporations such as Dow, DuPont, Philip Morris and SmithKline Beecham. In exchange, these corporate donors are provided services such as regular contact with decision makers. {{ref|6} {{ref|7}

EPC: Roundtable on ALcohol Related Harm

The EPC were asked to chair a series of four meetings intended to‘identify areas of agreement between the stakeholders as to actions that can contribute effectively to the reduction of [alcohol-related] harm and indicate where and why there is disagreement, and in so doing help create confidence between stakeholders’ {{ref|8}. These meetings facilitated by the EPC invited a number of industry stakeholders, public health NGOs the European Commission members states and academic experts. The substance of these meetings involved working through 78 issues related to alcohol policy presented by the European Commission in an informal draft of their communication on Alcohol. Each item was graded on the basis of a traffic lights system, green issues were broadly aggreeable to all present and 68 of the measures were, to the surprise of helath campaigners green. Seven were amber, indicating no overall agreement but that some compromises might be reached. Three were categorised as red issues where the industry simply refused to negotiate {{ref|9}

People

Notes

  1. ^ Quoted in "Crossing the Business and Political Divide", by Rory Watson, the European Voice 9-15 July 1998.
  2. ^ Mr. Crossick, a British corporate lawyer who set up his lobby firm in Brussels in 1977, managed to add to the Maastricht treaty a 68-word paragraph worth US$1 to $2 billion per word in savings to the European pension industry. Without these words, pension funds could have been forced to equalize the pension payments they had made to men and women since 1957. Source: "EU: The Brussels Lobbyists and the Struggle for Ear-Time", by Charlemagne, The Economist, 14 July 1998. |
  3. ^ Crossick, Kohnstamm and Palmer had earlier, in 1991, founded the Belmont European Policy Centre, which was the predecessor of the EPC.
  4. ^ Web page: <http://www.europeanpolicycenter.com>.
  5. ^ Keith Richardson is also special advisor to the Centre. Other advisors include Julian Oliver, former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce's EU Committee.
  6. ^ Corporate members are divided into four contribution categories: bronze, silver, gold and platinum corresponding to annual 2,500, 5,000, 10,000 and 100,000 Ecu donations. Only founders are considered platinum, Mark & Spencer and Mars.
  7. ^ CEO Part One: The European Policy Centre EUROPEAN THINK TANK SERIES, corporate Europe Observer, Issue 2, October 1998
  8. ^European Policy Centre, Belgium: The EPC Last Accessed July 2007
  9. ^ European Poicy Centre [hhtp://www.theepc.be/pdf/alcohol.pdf2006 Roundtable on ALcohol Related Harm Report] Last Accessed July 2007
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