Worst EU Lobbying and Greenwash Awards 2007

Voting has closed. The winners of the Awards will be announced at the Awards ceremony in Brussels on 4 December.

“Worst EU Lobbying” shortlist

The ‘Worst EU Lobbying’ Award is to be given to the lobbyist, company or lobby group that in 2007 has employed the most deceptive, misleading, or otherwise problematic lobbying tactics in their attempts to influence EU decision-making. In the ‘Worst EU Lobbying’ category you can vote for one of the following five nominees:

• BMW, Daimler and Porsche for their full-scale lobbying offensive to water-down and delay the EU mandatory targets for CO2 emissions from cars;
• EU public affairs consultancy Cabinet Stewart for running the International Council of Capital Formation (ICCF) – this so-called ‘unique European think-tank’ is in fact a front group for US-based opponents of the Kyoto Protocol;
• Viscount Etienne Davignon, for advising EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel about African development issues, even though he sits on the board for Suez – a transnational corporation looking to expand its energy and water business into Africa;
• The European Public Affairs Consultancies Association (EPACA) for its high-profile counter-campaign against the European Commission’s plans for a lobby transparency register;
• Repsol for misshaping the EU’s research agenda on agrofuels to fit narrow commercial interests, at the expense of genuine measures to combat climate change.

“Worst EU Greenwash” shortlist

This year there is an additional ‘Worst EU Greenwash’ Award for the company whose advertising, PR and lobbying lingo is most at odds with the real environmental impacts of their core business activities. In the ‘Worst EU Greenwash’ category you can vote for one of the following five nominees:

• Airbus for a series of adverts in which passenger jet silhouettes are filled with beautiful landscapes, pretending that their aeroplanes are green and clean;
• BAE Systems for promoting deadly weapons as environmentally friendly;
• ExxonMobil for purporting it is reducing its greenhouse gas emissions while in reality its emissions are increasing;
• The German Atomic Forum for its campaign “unloved climate protectionists”, abusing the public’s concern about climate change to promote nuclear energy;
• Shell for an advert suggesting that their oil refineries emit flowers not smoke.

Awards ceremony

Award winners will be invited to receive their awards in person at the festive ‘Worst EU Lobbying’ Awards Ceremony in Brussels on Tuesday 4 December 2007.

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The Award organizers

The Worst EU Lobbying Awards 2007 are organized by

• Corporate Europe Observatory
• Friends of the Earth Europe
• LobbyControl
• Spinwatch

‘Worst EU Lobbying’ Awards – why?

Thousands of corporate lobbyists roam the corridors of power in Brussels. Operating out of the spotlights, many of them do not hesitate to employ problematic methods, like pretending to be concerned environmentalists, buying science, secretly funding anarcho-capitalist think-tanks, or securing privileged access by EU bodies. As lobbying veteran Daniel Guéguen predicted a few years ago: “in the future […] we will tend to adopt ever tougher lobbying strategies […] that will probably involve practices such as manipulation, destabilisation or disinformation.”

Naming and shaming is one way to discourage such controversial lobbying practices, and this is the raison d’être for the ‘Worst EU Lobbying’ Awards. The awards also show the need for strong EU lobbying transparency and ethics rules. EU citizens have the right to know who is lobbying the EU institutions, who they represent, what budget they have at their disposal and which policies they try to influence.

Previous ‘Worst EU Lobbying’ winners

In 2006 the ‘Worst EU Lobbying’ Award was won by oil giant ExxonMobil for its secretive funding of climate-skeptic think tanks. In 2005 the prize went to the bogus Campaign for Creativity, a front group used by large IT companies to lobby for software patents and intellectual property rights.

• ‘Worst EU Lobbying’ Award 2006 archive
• ‘Worst EU Lobbying’ Award 2005 archive

Timeline for the ‘Worst EU Lobbying’ Awards 2007

Tuesday 7 August 2007
Nominations open

Saturday 15 September 2007
Nominations close

Monday 15 October 2007
Voting commences

Tuesday 27 November 2007, at midnight.
Voting closes

Tuesday 4 December 2007
Worst EU Lobbying Awards ceremony