European governments have spent the 67% of
public money to satisfy global corporations demands between 1995 and 2015,
according to research by Dr S. George released at the LSE conference last
Thursday.
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S. George at the LSE conference on “
Progress and its Discontents”.
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Dr George is a political activists, widely
translated author and President of the Transnational Institute. In her latest
book “Shadow Sovereigns: How Global Corporations are Seizing Power”, she
denounced the practice of global corporations to support economically European
electoral campaigns to receive in return legislative and financial advantages.
The funding of political parties by global
corporations and private individuals has caused an increase in the level of corruption
in USA and EU politics.
Dr George stated that: “Private individuals
and global corporations support candidates during the electoral campaigns to be
sure that their interests come first. Elected candidates don’t act in order to
preserve constitutional rights.”
In
the USA global corporations are regarded as genuine activists because they work
together with the state as a result of the combination of the capitalist
Dr George argued that: “Activities run by
individuals and corporations are not institutional. They are an offence to
democracy.”
In the EU there are fifty global
corporations that dominate the European industrial group and control the European
Commission through financial contributions.
“The European Round Table of Industrialists
(ERT) is more than a lobby group. Each member of ERT has access at the highest
levels of the government,” continued the social scientist.
In the EU lobbies escape political control
because the Lobby Registry is voluntary, while it’s compulsory in the USA.
The writer said: “The ERT is not controlled,
so since 1995 it’s working on the Transatlantic Business Dialogue to promote economic
integration between EU and the USA, when no European citizen has ever voted for
it.”
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| Timeline of the economic treaties between the EU and the USA |
“Despite
the Volkswagen scandal, there are only marginal measures taken in setting new
laws against pollution. Nothing is going to be obligatory until 2019. Our
health is damaged by global corporations demands,” added the activist.
Dr George encouraged young generation to
create doubt in the public mind because people still have the right to choose
for their future.
MEDIA OUTLET:
I’m going to pitch the story to the online
websites “Global Issues”, “The Guardian”. The first is a website that looks
into global issues that affect everyone and aim to show how most issues are
inter-related, while the second one has online space for economic and global
issues. I think that both websites would be interested for the themes, because
they could have a wide impact on readers and international organisations.
