Filip Gregor
Head of the Responsible Companies Team
Environmental Law Service is co-organising a half-day conference on lobbying transparency, ethics regulation and citizens participation, taking place in Brussels on 16 November.
The conference is organised by Access Info Europe, Aitec (Association Internationale des Techniciens, Experts et Chercheurs), Environmental Law Service, Friends of the Earth Europe, Health Action International, and Spinwatch, as part of the EU-funded project ‘Accountability, Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation: Citizens have a right to know (ALTER-Citizens)’.
The respect of human rights is the most fundamental value that we have as a society. Nevertheless, economic globalisation has lead to the massive exploitation of human rights in developing countries for the benefit of multinational enterprises (MNEs). The outsourcing and offshoring of production and services have had huge environmental and social costs.
The European Parliament approved last weekthe proposed college of Commissioners. Věra Jourová successfully faced the public grilling and will become the Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality. Due to the shift of competencies within the Commission, Ms. Jourová will have an opportunity to influence the governance and rules of the game for multinational corporations.
A new independent study by Czech, Polish and Slovakian watchdogs identifies major gaps both in the national and EU legal framework that fundamentally increase the risk of political corruption and allow misuse of EU funds. The comparative analysis complements the long-delayed first EU Anti-corruption report released today.
