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 Too close for comfort - The relationship between the biotech industry and the European CommissionThis is the title of a revealing analysis published by Friends of the Earth Europe. It is no secret that the EU political class has embraced the neoliberal agenda. In food and farming this translates as high-technology intensive farming with patented inputs and outputs that generate wealth for European industry.
The basic aim, clearly stated in EU policy objectives such as the Lisbon Agenda, is to make Europe a leader in the global economy. This has been expressed as different policy slogans – the ‘Biosociety’ in the 1980s, the ‘knowledge-based economy’ in the 1990s, and the ‘Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy’ (KBBE) in the current decade. Friends of the Earth Europe prepared a report to examine one of the results of the KBBE political mindset and agenda: corporate lobby power and its access to one of the key EU institutions, the European Commission. It focuses on one of the key biotech lobby groups - EuropaBio - and recent examples of the very cosy relationship between the companies who stand to make considerable profits from agricultural biotechnology, and policy makers at the European Commission. EuropaBio is one of the main and most active lobby groups on GM food and crops at the EU level, and boasts of its ‘excellent working relations’ with the European Commission. The group’s agri-biotech lobby efforts are headed by Bayer Cropscience, DuPont/Pioneer, Monsanto and Syngenta. As the GM food and crops market is dominated by these very few large corporations, EuropaBio is essentially pushing the interests of these at the European Commission and elsewhere. Click here to download the report Visit Friends of the Earth Europe’ web site |
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