Brussels, November 11 – The 2008 Worst EU Lobby Awards attracted more than 50 nominations, which made short-listing the final five in each category quite a task.

Worst Lobby Award researchers check out the details on each nomination and where necessary carry out further research.  Each candidate must clearly meet the criteria in their nominated category - and there must be convincing evidence that this is the case.

Choosing the strongest candidates can involve some tough decisions. And there are always some cases which are within a cat’s whisker of making the short list. 

This year’s nomination for the Swedish coal company Vattenfall for example came very very close.  The company, which has recently launched the first test carbon capture and storage project in Germany, was nominated because of its clean coal lobbying and greenwash propaganda. The EU focus was not clear from the nomination, although the more recent “greenwash” offensive in Brussels would have guaranteed it a place on the shortlist if it had happened earlier in the year. But by then, we had already decided that there were other stronger contenders for the Worst Lobbying Award.

There was also some discussion as to whether we should pick Elmar Brok instead of Klaus Heiner Lehne in the Worst Conflict of Interest category.

Elmar Brok is one of the European Parliament’s longest standing MEPs, having served for 28 years. Since the early nineties, Brok has also worked as a lobbyist for the German media company, Bertelsmann. He has never hidden his connection to Bertelsmann and claims to keep his two roles separate. Leaked internal documents by Bertelsmann however show this is not really the case. A 1994 report from the Brussels lobby office boasts:  “we have achieved that the initial wording of ‘cross-ownership’ restrictions [for media] are weakened.” It is signed by Brok.

More recently Brok has actively promoted the push for a transatlantic free trade zone in the European Parliament – an agenda that is also supported by Bertelsmann and the Bertelsmann Foundation. Brok definitely deserves a nomination for the worst conflict of interest for mingling his work as an MEP with that of corporate lobbyist. But in the end we chose Lehne because of his efforts in creating a loophole for lawyers working as lobbyists in a Parliament resolution in May this year. More recent than the Brok allegations.

The giants of the music industry EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner were also nominated for a Worst Lobby Award following their collaborative lobbying as IFPI (http://www.ifpi.org/) for the extension of the copyright period to 95 years. IFPI claimed  concern about the need to protect the incomes of ageing artists, which coincided with boosting IFPI member profits by limiting public access to cultural goods. The European Commission decided to extend copyright despite evidence from its own study which contradicted the industry case. But with little detail available as to who lobbied who this nomination did not make the short-list. 

A nomination for Friends of the Earth Europe was dismissed because it clearly did not meet the criteria for conflict of interest. The nomination seemed to object to public money (from the Commission) being used to lobby on behalf of the “public interest”.

Lots of organisations get EU funding because, under a democratic system, it is widely recognised that they play a vital role in contributing to policy debates and promoting the public interest. Public funding doesn't mean that NGOs push the European Commission's line - as can be seen by the critical positions many of them take.

Vote for the worst of the worst at http://www.worstlobby.eu/2008/