Amazon lobbyists to be banned from European parliament
uni-europa.org
uni-europa.org
> Lobbyists to be banned from European parliament
This is a hand-out to the rich. Unless you plan on making individual carve-outs for every NGO and citizen group.
And who, do you think, finances those "NGO"s and "citizen group"s ?
The solution is clear: everyone needs to lobby for their interests and the people should all fund (crowdsourcing) organizations that lobby for politics they want done.
Transparency of lobbying, while benefitial is not a solution.
This is democracy and free society in action, indeed. As long as it is transparent there is nothing not to "like".
That's why this ban in Amazon lobbyists is actually bad news but not surprising if you've been following how the EU has been evolving.
Corporations aren't citizens though. Politics exists to represent the people, not the corporations. They shouldn't have any influence over politics. The economy is not a goal on its own, it's only there for the benefit of the citizens.
And they already have a really heavy influence in favour of their goals in terms of all their employees, shareholders etc who can vote. They already have adequate representation that way.
We're not as bad as the US yet with all the heavy campaign contributions with strings attached, but we don't want to end up there either. So I'm very happy the huge multinationals get some pushback.
There are tons of (non-rich) lobbying groups like this, for things like climate action, labour rights, consumer rights, etc.
Of course, it's probably correct that lobbying is probably skewed towards the rich. And maybe we need to correct for that. But then the question becomes "should we correct the influence of money in lobbying, and if so, how?"
> "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread."
I forgot about the impotence of Greenpeace, the NRA, the ACLU and EFF, of Susan B. Anthony.
Have you met a lawmaker, or been involved in the passage of a law? The state of civics education in America is such that a minority of folks understand the first rule of politics: showing up is half the battle. Unfortunately, pitching nihilism is a good way to keep the other side from bothering.
No need for Constitutional amendments when the healthcare and insurance industry in the USA (the biggest spenders in lobbying afaik) can lobby politicians to block legislation setting caps on drug prices paid by the government through ACA, or to keep the dysfunctional system of health insurance you live under.
Let me know when citizens can spend some US$ 8-10b on lobbying for universal healthcare, just like the combined spending of healthcare + insurance industries...
And just a quick edit: setting the NRA as an example of citizens' association lobbying is a bit tone deaf given what they do for the weapons industry, it's another very good case for how lobbying can be detrimental to society by hiding big corporations interests behind what is seemingly a citizens' association.
Edit as a form of last reply since I got rate limited:
You edited the comment to remove the sentence saying "state or federally" which implied to me you were talking about the USA. A bit of a dishonest response after such edit...
I don’t. I asked about lawmakers and laws.
I have in America, a few European states and India. The people who benefit from restrictions on lobbying are those with personal access to power. Because the lobbyists let the little people and those faraway get the access they believe they earned, bought or were born into.
Normal people don't have the time, money, or connections to effectively lobby. The best that you can do is kick a few bucks to some NGO that seems to be in line with your stance on whatever issue. But that's really just making the whole problem worse rather than working to having a government that is better at representing the people.
Yes, they do. And many Americans are good at reaching out to their electeds.
Most aren’t, however, which makes cutting a few bucks to an aligned NGO more comfortable than picking up the phone.
I can't wine and dine them, kick large amounts of money to their favorite charities, take them on expensive "junkets", etc.
We don't let children vote, or in some places the incarcerated and/or felons, and we judiciously regulate how and when others can vote.
If we can regulate voting this way surely we can regulate lobbying.
We absolutely regulate lobbying.
Sure. Perhaps the greatest asset the over-the-top lobbyists have is the ban-lobbying bunch.
It's a whole different world of probal that would require an authoritarian state with an absolute control over people's lives... And at that point it becomes moot.
You realize that lobbying is literally hiring the polician in your NGO, before and after his tennure, right ? /s
Lobbying is legalized corruption, by the rich and for the rich.
The EU's institutions are on a wrong path, IMHO.
Almost every political action is for politicians' benefit, that's the whole incentive, it's unfortunate because I'd prefer a world where politicians just do the right thing but we can't have a political system that depends on the morality of everyone involved to do the right thing.
Again, if Amazon has been breaking the law in their warehouses that's the job of the courts and employment tribunals.
The EU Parliament has been going from bad to worse over the years, it's now just ideology and populism. Instead of using Amazon as punching ball they should rather ponder why the EU economy and EU companies are falling behind...
Probably because it's not a free-for-all on who makes more money with no accountability to 2nd and 3rd order effects on society. If we care about citizens' wellbeing before profits there are many things that become less profitable and/or competitive than in places with less safeguards against corporations damages.
That's a meaningless slogan and not mutually exclusive.
Ultimately without profits and a productive economy the citizens' wellbeing will become unaffordable and take a nosedive. This is already happening throughout Europe.
Consider the case for food, you can remove regulations and let it be a free for all race to the bottom to who can produce the most food for the cheapest price without a care about the environment, food safety or how sustainable it will be; or you can try to regulate known externalities that will cause an increase in costs, prices but will reduce damages to society as a whole.
Or the case for heavy industry, you can deregulate everything and not care about worker safety, environmental impact, and allow factories to be placed near water reservoirs with no water treatment; or you try to zone out factories to places with less impact to populated areas, require them to treat waste, impose restrictions on how they should gas out potential harmful by-products (CO2, sulfides, etc.).
The whole point is to strike a balance between economic growth and not allowing this growth to be detrimental to society in the long-term, it's a pretty damn complex task and a whole apparatus exist around it exactly because it's not simple.
If this is meaningless to you then I'm sorry but we have very different worldviews to how economic growth should be attained; I'd much rather have societies thinking about this rather than purely pushing economic growth at all costs, damned be the ones suffering from its side-effects.
> Ultimately without profits and a productive economy the citizens' wellbeing will become unaffordable and take a nosedive. This is already happening throughout Europe.
I don't believe it's happening throughout Europe, it's still one of the richest places on the entire Earth, it might be lagging behind the USA's and China's growth but both of these societies suffer much more the side-effects of their growth (and push those onto humanity as a whole when considering emissions of greenhouse gasses).
Is there a legal obligation for Amazon to have access to the European parliament?
When Amazon is ignoring the Parliament when they seek to talk to them, it just seems fair that the Parliament is ignoring Amazon when they want to talk.
Checks and balances.
This has nothing to do with "show trials". If you hold 14 lobbying badges and do not respect the European Parliament's Employment Committee's repeated requests to discuss important matters of employment in the European Union, then Amazon is really showing contempt for the lawmakers and the European institutions.
It's very understandable why they are talking about a "red line" here: If a company of the size and importance of Amazon refuses to sit down with lawmakers and discuss problems caused by their commercial activities on a European-wide scale, then they're not showing the kind of social and political responsibility that's fair to require from a corporation with direct access to European lawmakers.
The decisive body seems to agree:
> all quaestors were in favour of authorising the secretary general to withdraw their long-term access badges
There's more detail here:
https://www.politico.eu/article/amazon-lobbyists-face-ban-fr... https://euobserver.com/digital/158150
As the article notes, Amazon did meet with MEPs pretty frequently in the parliament buildings, suggesting that this ban will have some impact on their lobbying efforts.
A law banning all lobbyists would be fine, but pick and choosing what lobbyists you allow just sounds like it could only lead to corruption.
In the US due process is also rife with corruption, a layered form where if you have enough money to pay a stellar legal team you'll find loopholes and appeals processes to massage your way through.
Until fines reach levels that actually impact the pay of the CEO, they will continue to be ignored.
A $5 billion AWS investment in Mexico:
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-aws-region-in-mexico-is...
Regional and national media are swallowing it up, yeah the country needs the investment, but at what price ? Gov still mum on what it took to 'land' the deal (tax/land break).
I remembered the Amazon HQ2 hoopla from years back, that U.S state/local govs were turning over backwards to land it, offering a lot of incentives. And I just looked the yesterday, that deal (HQ2) is still on hold and it was for just as much ($5 billion).
And what were the other 9? I hate when they say hand wave details. If they were to amazons benefit then state what they were. Otherwise it looks like you're tugging at facts.
https://www.aboutamazon.eu/news/policy/setting-the-record-st...
So thats both sides of the spin...
This is also what Amazon's reply addresses. I don't know if Amazon's claims that these meetings are "clearly one-sided and not designed to encourage constructive debate or objective scrutiny" are accurate.
Is amazon good? Fuck no.
Is the EU parliament being protectionist... yes and not just of "people".
Some more discussion over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39527379
The move comes after Amazon’s repeated refusal to attend hearings in the European Parliament on working conditions in Amazon warehouses.
Front up, answer questions, regain access.
At one point Amazin is right to tell them to do one. If laws have been broken then that's the job of courts and employment tribunals.