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. murray a green calls came across a tell it's. it was from visit decker see your phillips. in december nine hundred eighty five he wrote to the heads of state just before the signing of the single european fact but 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 two you were presented sixty percent of western europe's industrial output this was blackmail. 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. and we felt that this was a betrayal and we wanted to do something about it it's it was 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.

undercover interview. finally in spring one thousand nine hundred seventy we assembled the results of our investigations and interviews into a report europe. rescheduled the book launch for the big you some of them so that all the media would be there we were excited as. we had prepared the book launch and half an hour before the first friend started to write . very little or no press or showed up. so unfortunately our first public events that's really not noticed as part of. the job of the most ambitious monetary group of a key exercise the strengthening of the rules by a system of multilateral craig. and perhaps most important the establishment of

a strong broadly based well trained organizer. i started to work on the financial services cats negotiations that were really the time where i discovered this is we just 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 involved i'm a cheap to make stuart re success. with your approval therefore my gavel the euro why rose continued. in telemarketing. was economy and a very important market reach market was a deep. 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 commission of european union was complaining that i with every time he was going to negotiate with the united states in front of him we see is counterpart over here you have your office in and garden city three or four years and on his back he would have c.e.o.'s of big banks a big insurance companies telling please do that for me please do that for us but winterland britain was turning his back to see where this report was it was actually having only some minister 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 traders here. 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 expert in the finance ministry is by they need to get the information directly from the the banks and the insurance companies. you know so then at a point in time european commission a so in britain decided ok there was association and not really serious about this issue i am going to invite for dinner forty see you 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 to bunch of forty of those. and. after the dinner he said well now that you've got some some food. by the commission

you owe me something you have to do something for me people sometimes think that the commission comes up with ideas out of the blue with and pushes them it's not so a tool the commission is thirsty for ideas from the cannot make acton's to help us to decide what to put food which is in the interests of europe. 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 for. relief. in general to nine we had. eleven months to prepare seattle first every cio i mean it's your conference after the creation of this organization imagine at four and the idea was that this meeting is going to lounge is amazing umbrella and that's so you know britain had so much push for.

brits and never got to see out all the internal 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 or blocking the door by lying. 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 disallows of the c.s. around so that we will enter into a new phase a negotiation is a libra zation of service. i remember commissioner. has been blocking i mean he has

been in for two and terry's car 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 his job. many n.g.o.s say that yourself is a secret secret organisation having secret meetings you can commission all the everything is on the website i mean i am doing my job by contacting the commission and the officials responsible for my file if anybody else would like to do the same there's a fun place on the in the world on the website i'm just doing my job and i don't have anything specific but if the commission has some relationship with us if it is 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. we should see a new dinner if the friends of yours which is really

a very big brussels organization and lots of also people from different countries different jobs different walks of life who all interested in. how can you develop with the right things to do wrong and how can i build on what we've already done. i mean coolest thing trying to. think things in brussels are you feeling a part of the vacuum that exists now that you live with that there is no european probably to peace. to syntax to step into that vacuum and the forums in which something like a debate happens inside the brussels bubble. there are national politicians here european politicians through a civil servant said the dreaded you know it creates a dear good diplomat strip businessman professions from you diversity is also seen people wondering about bristles it's a bit like a religion if you want to. still wanted not well when i will actually be on the

team not at 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 being the sponsoring it microsoft is one of american business is present in europe microsoft is one of them why not. have had think tanks in brussels that were directly funded 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 kind of strengthens your

position. you can launch a mess if p.r. campaigns and flood the media with your information. what also happens is setting up fake n.g.o.s as happened in the big battle about the software patents law suddenly there were these advertisements from an enduro that's said it was representing small and medium sized companies but the financial backers of this n.g. hope for microsoft and it's the people. in the end it's all about money in them across here it's one person one vote 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 lobbying by whom and on which issues. we need to cut this on the democrats control it has to be made visible what the role is of lobbying in the decision making what is the role of the logic. pretty like monsanto or shell.

mission. couldn't take three. point three. three. three. three. old free broadcast quality mediocre four year media projects free media odone to hard times. so one of my first testimonies before the european commission was a very very awakening experience. but. 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. when the first burst of commission started its in autumn two thousand and four we wrote an open letter to the commission president. 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 office of the same color as commissioner from estonia responsible for administration inviting us to come over. so we went to mr callouses 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 were welcomed by mr cullison himself and one of his cabinet members. in this and mystical as. brochure and that made us smile it was a lovely planet guide to brussels which was a tongue in cheek but very critical look at industry lobbying in the you written by eric and me in our our colleagues. when i started as a mistress and commission and i really saw that services so weak suspicion surrounding so this isn't making in european union. of course i. say establish for myself a purpose to look to reduce the suspicions. told her step he was going to launch this european transparency initiative and we immediately saw that it's who serve because political opportunity. as an outsider to brussels business he also had

a clear sense for how the ordinary sense of brussels. and some colors to get on with the lobby in the street. european commission is going to it's that's activities of interest representatives are legitimate and offer valuable input into the decision making process have to happen in a transparent manner the commission can see this that these important to know the interest representatives are what the interests they represent and against what financial background. of say efforts to do creates a speech or to make the speech. of course outlined main principles of transparency initiative which should be done and it was of course met . with the excitement of controversial reactions and if you know without financial transparency we'll never find out who really is behind the campaign sticked lip

a little bit more control on ourselves wouldn't harm our reputation with our voters that i spotted the transparency must not for closer contact with the. life with interest groups or groups without interest thank you commissioner callus can certainly understand best. when 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 u.s. and as a result i was brought out about half a dozen different times to testify before the european commission and the european parliament to tell the truth i was very impressed with the same color as when i first started working with him in the european commission some callers helped really usher 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 fights and exhausted commission and took the stage to finally launch a lobby register a good. woman known or often. so quite that remarkable moment today. three years ago i proposed to set up a register of lobbyists in order to enhance transparency and and legitimacy and i want you to see in making persists and. openness from today. so we proposed voluntary solution because i was i am convinced that cease would shoot for all expect basins and i think that today's is

a very important moment of cultural change. concerning zeese. aspect of this is making in european institutions. sinclair's introduced a voluntary system against all recommendations by n.g.o.s and experts this was the best he could get. we have tried for over two years now to find out who had blocked callouses origin or intention. where it's other commissioners the commission secretary and the lobbyist themselves. one month after the financial crisis started in october two thousand and eight. appointed that 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. shocked a lot and i must say are unloading my easing mccarty nashik culture over each to separate us from now on this and last nuba. we looked into the independence of this independent group and we found some less honestly things. the lover she is the co-chair of a financial lobby organisation. linked to lehman brothers. gooding to citi group leasing to goldman sachs. accounting nuber and bunch of always are notorious deregulators. and paris fernandes works to provide financial market intelligence to big banks. three of the eight were

directly linked to american banks all of which were directly involved in causing the crisis. in addition closely into american right wing think tanks like the cato institute this was one of the closest advisers to the bush administration he was also involved in the earlier a think tank some brussels in poland and the u.k. . of a single of these wise men there was in favor of strict regulation another single one of them was really independence and the effect of these eight wise men on overcoming the financial crisis was zero the main thing that happened last a lot of public money was flowing to the banks. as if.

this author 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 by 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. was a dis what we europeans had wanted. wasn't really naive to have a european dream. that

human nature and yet not only could you always have it but site 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 have groups because otherwise people are going too fast on the motorway because people are not respected elders because the stronger take this basis is this is a human nature what we have done to go and make sure that we live together these by creating niches lage us by creating an authority that everyone respects or.

choose your language. because we know if to tell someone to say they feel some of. us choose the future of the concerns you are going to choose the opinions that

invigorating to. choose the stories that imply a good life choose the access to your office. i never knew adam lanza in person but i was in the same high school as adam 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 children. america's you know so when you go on this there would be an

american and 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 respect it 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. a. little bit. of both. i will tell. you that in the end of the speech. you.

wish. all things mom is good bill.