every six months there was an e.u. summit and every six months that your team it's just a few days before. location and they were kept confidential the booking was made two years in advance. left behind was a clear message to the following you summit on the heads of governments a few days later. the single market the monetary union infrastructure projects a flexible labor market deregulation downsized public services austerity measures and so on and so on the whole your liberal agenda for the basically our picture got confirmed by american scholar stepping into the topic maria green towels i was

interested in doing something about europe and something about the european union i started talking with some of the c.e.o.'s and in particular the corporate affairs managers of these firms to ask them what happened and everybody had a little piece of the story and then i met with keith richardson. keith and i would talk about different things and he would give me some ideas and i'd go and i'd talk with other individuals and then i'd come back with more questions and sometimes tease out the answers and sometimes they didn't and finally i believe it was on my seventh meeting with keith when i said to keith you know i can write about this i can have all these different interviews but i really want to see the pieces of paper said to me well you know i have a bunch of cardboard boxes in the basement of the we haven't opened them they're from the earlier days we just we just put this material in the boxes and of course

and you know in the back of my mind i was very excited thinking this is it. maria green calls came across a telling. it was from visit decker c.e.o. phillips. in december nine hundred eighty five he wrote to the heads of state just before the signing of the single european act which started the process of the single market. the crux of the tallackson is as follows you know we don't know what you're going to do but we want you to act you can act one way or another if you choose not to have a single market program then you have given us no choice but perhaps take our business elsewhere.

this was a clear fred the year to year we presented sixty percent of western europe's industrial output this was black main. why did not a single government say anything about the deck or taylor hicks. or about the other frets that followed. they were elected representatives. but we felt that this was a betrayal and we wanted to do something about it it's important for a bigger public to know about this and we decided to publish a book. and decide collecting data we started to make interviews. and undercover interviews. and finally in spring one thousand and seven we assembled the results of our investigations and interviews into

a report europe. rescheduled the book launch for the big use some of them so that all the media would be there we were excited as. we approach. the book launch and half an hour before the first friends started arriving. very little or no pressure showed up. so unfortunately our first public events was really not news is part of. the job of the most ambitious moderate being ruled by a key exercise the strengthening of the rule system of multilateral trade. and perhaps most important the establishment of a stronger the more broadly. brain organized.

i started to work on the financial services cats negotiations and that was really the time where i discovered this is we'd like we'd like to do that. we've come to the end of the most far reaching trade negotiation ever. the negotiators of the hundred seventeen governments and richie vtam extraordinary success. with your approval there for my gavel the euro why rodas continue. in telemarketing. was economy and a very important market rich market was a high g.d.p. per capita and that when the european union was going outside and negotiate as a bloc they had real power because it was a biggest exporter the biggest importer the biggest foreign investor. but so in

britain the trade commissioner through opinion was complaining as i was every time he was going to negotiate with the united states in front of him we see he is going to. and you know here you have your office and garden city for years and on his back he will have c.e.o.'s of big banks a big insurance company telling please do that for me please do that for us but winterland britain was turning his back to see where the support was he was actually having only some ministers saying don't do this don't do that and please do that it only but not more and he was really not very happy you know because we discovered that there is a whole world of lobbyists in washington to tell their government what they want in the trade association. and we thought this is the way we have to go we have to do something like that the european institutions is asking for it these institutions cannot only rely on the information given by the member states and the experts in

the finance ministry by the need to get information directly from the the banks or the insurance companies. you know so they're not a point in time european trade commission a so in britain decided ok there was association i'm not really serious about this issue i am going to invite for dinner fourteen c.-u. of the major services companies in europe so it's about big banks big telecom big insurance big decisions services big transport services big tourism companies when you take all the different sectors it is actually making about seventy percent of the g.d.p. in europe so we invited the bunch of forty of those. and. after dinner he said well now that you've got some some food by the commission you only saw things you have to do something for me people sometimes think that the commission comes up with ideas out of the blue pushes them it's not

a tool traditionally is thirsty for ideas from the actons to hopeless to decide what to put food. this is where the idea of creating a network of association and companies pushing for the trade in service is use by the private sector came up i became managing director of the open services firm. in general one thousand and two nine we had. eleven months to prepare seattle first every cio i missed your conference us as a creation of this organization imagine at four and the idea was that this meeting is going to lounge the millenium brown that's so you know britain had so much push for. britain never

got to see how to turn commission had to resign because of the massive fraud several commissioners were involved in. the millennium round itself took a completely unexpected turn. i was based in the hotel and there's a conference was in the sheraton five hundred metres away and i have not been allowed to go out of the hotel because it was one protest looking to drop by line. and it was a police officer beside him and asking can i go outside please i would like to go and do my job. i was going to assist disallowance of the c. s. around so that we will enter into a new phase a negotiation is a libra zation of the service. i remember that commissioner let me as being blocked i mean he has been able to enter he's caught but the car couldn't move because of those people they're just there and the policeman say please go away in five metres

so that the v.i.p.'s here can do its job. many n.g.o.s say that yourself is a secret secret organisation having secret meetings you can commission all the way ricin is on their website. i mean i am doing my job by contacting the commission where officials responsible for my file if anybody else would like to do the same there's a fun number he's on the in the on the website i'm just doing my job and i don't have anything specific but is a commission has some relationship with the surface because it commission is willing to get some information from the services sectors before negotiating on their behalf because this is what we're talking about trade is done by companies not by n.g.o.s. b c c i knew a dinner at the french if you're a which is really a very big brussels organization look it's also people from different countries different jobs different walks of life who do all interested in. how can europe

develop would be right things to do wrong and how can i build a lot we've already done. i mean coolest thing trying to. think tanks in brussels are feeling a part of the vacuum that exists so that you would have thought that there was no european probably to greece. to syntax to step into that vacuum and the forums in which something like a debate happens inside the process bob. there are national politicians here european politicians mysterious civil servant said the dreaded you know it creates a dear good diplomat story of businessman good professors from universities will soon see people wondering about bristles it's a bit like a religion if you will be told they want to know where or when i will actually be on the team the moderate my job is to keep in contact. think tanks are not

themselves lobbyists but they are part of the landscape of lobbying because companies use them to transmit their demands from their their perspectives and all of these are heavily dependent on industry funding. simple people are sponsoring it microsoft is one of the american business presently knew it microsoft is one of them why not. have had think tanks in brussels that were directly from the by the oil industry and that we're working to. sold out about whether there is such a thing as climate change and whether it's important for governments to act is to reduce c o two emissions. you can set up research institutes to provide you with. research that's kind of strengthens your position. you can launch message p.r. campaigns and the media with your information. what also happens is setting up

fake n.g.o.s as happened in a big battle about the software patents law suddenly there were these advertisements from an enduro to its set it was reprocessing small and medium sized companies put the financial backers of this n.g. over microsoft and the people. in the end it's all about money in the it's one person one fold but in the brussels baseness it's one euro one fault the problem is we don't know about the money behind politics we don't know how much is being spent on the wealthy and by whom and on which issues. we need to put this on the democrats control it has to be made visible what's the role is of lobbying the decision making what is the role of a large company like monsanto or shell. you

know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so poorly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur locums a big picture. i never knew adam lanza in person but i was in the same high school as that and he was younger than me just a little bit younger. i always thought he was different i always into something funny he rarely talks and you don't use a shy kid. i don't know anyone who is friends with him i also don't know of anyone who is particularly mean to the what i do know is that it was very clear that this person was not like everybody else. can imagine the level of mental illness that would be present to murder

show. america's you know so when you go on this there would be an american behind every tree with a gun. for kids growing up in this environment is good for them at an early age to least see the gun and respected because they need to know what kind of damage it can do. this is our first task as a society. keeping our children safe. this is how we will be judged.

been. back to the. so one of my first testimonies before the european commission was a very very awakening experience. i had one commissioner interrupt me and say well we understand you had a problem in the united states with lobbying activities but he went on to say but

you know this is brussels and this is europe we don't have that kind of activity going on here which just kind of floored me that anyone could be so naive. more perhaps the fact of answer was ok i'll concede that a lot of these k. street lobbyists and the professional lobbyists here in the united states may be corrupt however i know every major k. street lobby shop also has a lobby shop in brussels and so we're in your bed europe don't you want to know if you think that we are so corruptible and so corrupting don't you want to know who we are and who's paying for us and what it is we're trying to get you to do for us.

we have to decide to regulate lobbying for a long time in two thousand and four the new commission came in and for the first time ten eastern european countries were part of. the first burns a commission started its in autumn two thousand and four we wrote an open letter to the commission president jose manuel barroso signed by over fifty n.g.o.s. i would just like to say thank you. that's a very sincere thank you for the confidence which you just voiced and invested in me and i'd like to say to you that i understand this is a vote of confidence as also implying huge responsibility on my part and we are

going to work hard give our all to serve europe to serve the institutions of the european union and to serve all our coast citizens of europe that. the response was a very short formal letter saying we received your letter sent you very interesting . but no substantial response. so we sent the same letter to all the presidents of the commission. and suddenly towards the end of february we were contacted by the official same colors commissioner from estonia responsible for administration inviting us to come over. so we went to mr collis his office which was somewhere in the top of the building.

we didn't know what we had to expect from this meeting we had never been approached by a commission so in that sense it was very exciting we welcomed by mr cullison himself and one of his cabinet members. had a brochure and that made us smile it was a lovely plan it got to brussels which was a tongue in cheek but very critical look at industry lobbying in the u. written by eric and me in our our colleagues. when i started the. commission and i really souls are so weak suspicion surrounding so decision making in european union . of course i. say establish for myself a purpose to reduce the suspicions. told her step he was going to launch this european transparency initiative and we immediately sold at the

political. business. sense for. us. to get on with the lobby in the street. european commission is going to activities of interests represented. the decision making process have to happen in a transparent manner the commission can see that's important to know. what the interests they represent and against what financial background. say efforts to do creates a speech or to make the speech. of course outlined main principles of transparency initiative which will be done. of reactions and if you know without financial transparency we'll never find out

who really is behind the campaign stick. a little bit more control on ourselves wouldn't harm our reputation with our voters. transparency must not for closer contact with real life with interest groups or groups without interest thank you commissioner callus and certainly understand. the european union was considering the european transparency initiative they were looking for some advice as to how some of these achievements happened in the us and as a result i was brought out about half a dozen different times to testify before the european commission in the european parliament to tell the truth i was very impressed with the same color so when i first started working with them in the european commission some callers helped really the whole significance of needing transparency. he was very adamant at first about setting up

a mandatory disclosure system full transparency but halfway through the process some colors came up against the political reality and. after free years of struggle and political fight and exhausted commissioner colorless and to the stage to finally launch a lobby register a good. old mill. or often or. so quite that unlockable moment today. three years ago i proposed to set up a register of lobbyists and in order to enhance transparency and and legitimacy i don't say i'm evil decision making process and. openness from today. so we broke post one on three solution because i was i am i am convinced that cease would suit for all expect basins and i

think that two days there is a very important moment of cultural change. concerning zeese. aspect of this isn't making in european institutions. some cause introduced a voluntary system against all recommendations by n.g.o.s and the experts this was the best he could get. we have tried for over two years now to find out who had blocked colossus' or original intention. where it's other commissioners the commission secretary and the lobbyist themselves. a month after the financial crisis started in october two thousand and eight.

appointed independent high level group on financial supervision. the group was to work our proposals for the regulation of the financial markets and to find a way out of the financial crisis. eight so-called wise men were appointed to this group. and i must say. on the reading of my easing mccarty nashik culture over each disappeared as found on this and last nuba . we looked into the any pennance of this independent group and we found some less honestly things. the lover she is the co-chair of a financial lobby organization. is lead to layman brothers. greeting to citi group leasing to goldman sachs. mccarty nuber and bunch of always are notorious deregulators. and paris fernandes works to

provide financial market intelligence to big banks. free of the eight were directly linked to american banks all of which were directly involved in causing the crisis. which in addition closely linked to american right wing think tanks like the cato institute was one of the closest advisors to the bush administration he was also involved in the earlier i think tanks in brussels and poland and the u.k. . all the single of these wise men was in favor of strict regulation now the single one of them was really independence and the effect of these eight wise men on overcoming a financial crisis was here are the main thing that happened was that a lot of public money was flowing to the banks. is the.

ah this whole affair has a horrible sense of deserve all the same financial institutions that were bailed out with taxpayers' money i know making a fortune from greece's misfortune while those same taxpayers are paying the price in deep cuts to their salaries and social services. after twenty years of deregulation and liberalisation suddenly the european union herself was at the edge of being blown up. what is at stake is not only the european union but also democracy and the future of the values that we hold dear. ones that this what we europeans had wanted.

wasn't really naive to have a european dream. is in the human nature and yet not on. your list but cite somewhere. and we need to make sure that we keep only the good and therefore you need regulation. when you live in a society you half truths because otherwise people are going too fast on the motorway because people have no respect and elss because the stronger take this basis is this is human nature what we have done to go and make sure that we live together is by creating legislation in place by creating an authority that everyone respects.

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