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tv   [untitled]    March 10, 2013 5:30pm-6:00pm EDT

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this was a clear fred the year t. hree percentage sixty percent of western europe's industrial output this was blackmailing. 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 besides collecting data we started to make interviews. undercover interviews. and finally in spring one thousand nine hundred seventy we
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assembled the results of our investigations and interviews into a report europe. rescheduled the book launch for the big east summit in 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 friends started arriving . very little or no press showed up. so unfortunately our first public events that's really not noticed by the pope. jumped into the writers down this road block today and groove a key exercise the strength of the rules by a system of multilateral craig. and perhaps most simple the establishment of a stronger broadly. and you organized.
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by started to work on the financial services cats negotiations and that was really the time where i discovered this if we stand like we'd like to do that. we've come to the end of the most. negotiation. the negotiators in seventeen governments and the achieved an extraordinary success. with your approval therefore my gavel you're acquiring. the internal market of. was becoming any very important market reach market was a high g.d.p. per capita and that when the european union was going outside and negotiate as
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a bloc they had a 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 was every time he was going to negotiate with the united states in front of him when we see his counterpart here you have your office and garden audiences through the stories and on his back he has 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 his report was he 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. we discovered that there is a whole world of lobbyists in washington to tell the 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 you. an institution is asking for it institution cannot
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only rely on the information given by the member state and the expert in the finance ministry is why they need to get the information directly from the the banks at the insurance company. so they are not a point in time european commission a soul in britain decided ok there was association of we serious about this issue i am going to invite for dinner fourteen 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 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
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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 help us to decide i want to put food. this is where the idea of creating a network of association and companies pushing for the trade in service is used by the private sector came up and became managing director of the open services firm. in general nine hundred eighty nine we had. eleven months to prepare seattle first . a ministerial conference after the creation of this organisation imagine at four and the idea was that this meeting is going to lounge the millenium brown that. britain had so much. push for.
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britain never got to seattle inter commission had to resign because of the massive frauds several commissioners were involved in. the millennium round itself took a completely unexpected turn. i was based in the hotel and as 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 around 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 his allowance of the c s around so that we will enter into a new phase a negotiation for liver is a liver is a shot of the service. i remember that commissioner let me as been blocking i mean he has been able to enter he's caught but the car couldn't move because of those
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people they're just there and no policeman say please go away in five metres so that the high 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 way everything is on the website i mean i am doing my job by contacting the commission with officials responsible for my file if anybody else would like to do the same there's a phone number he's on the in the 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's because it commission is willing to get some information from the services sector is before negotiating on their behalf because this is what we're talking about trade is done by companies not by n.g.o.s. this is the annual dinner if the french if you're a teacher is really a very big muscles organized very. it looked so lots of people from different
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countries different jobs different walks of life who do all interested in. how can europe develop how can we be right things that are 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 base. to syntax to step into that vacuum and they are the forums in which something like a debate happens inside the brussels bubble. there are national politicians doing european politician or a serious civil servant said the dreaded you know it cracks a good diplomat strip businessmen get their faces through universities will still see people wondering about bristles it's a bit like it really everybody will still want to know. when i will to be on the
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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 the industry from the. simple people are sponsoring it microsoft is one of the american reason it's present in europe microsoft is one of the why not. have had think tanks in brussels that were directly from the party or oil industry and that we're working to. sold out about whether it or such a thing as climate change and whether it's important for governments to have access to reduce c o two emissions. you can set up research institutes to provide. research that's kind of strengthens your process. you can launch message p.r.
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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 books the financial backers of this n.g. over microsoft and disappear. in the end it's all about money in the crossing 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 lobbying 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 in the decision making what is to role of a large company like monsanto or shell. to
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speak your language. programs in documentaries in arabic it's all here on. reporting from the will talks skiffy ip interviews interesting story for you. to try. to find out more visit arabic don't all teeth don't call.
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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
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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 burst of 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.
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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 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 co citizens of europe that. the response was a very short formal letter saying we received your letter sent you very interesting . no substantial response. so we sent a signal letter to all the presidents of the commission. and suddenly towards the
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end of february we were contacted by the official 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 we welcomed by mr cullison himself and one of his cabinet members. in this and mr colors had a brochure and that made him smile it was a lovely plan of god to brussels which was a tongue in cheek but a 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 this isn't making in european
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union. of course i. say establish for myself a purpose to reduce the suspicions. told to step he was going to launch this european transparency initiative and we immediately saw that these fruits are become political. as an outside business. sense for. us to get on with in the street. european commission is going to. this of interests represent a. valuable input into a decision making process have to happen in a transparent manner the commission can see the us these important to know. what the interests they represent and against what financial background. of
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say efforts to do creates a speech or to make the speech. of course outlined main principles of transparency nice at the which should be done and. 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 u.s.
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and as a result it 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 some callers 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 took the stage to finally launch a lobby register a good. little known or often the. so i am quite that unlockable moment today. three years ago i proposed. to set up the register of lobbyists i mean all of the enhanced unspent of
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sand and legitimacy i don't say i'm evil decision making process and. openness from today. so we proposed. very solution because i was i am i am convinced that cease would suit for all expect basins and i think that those 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
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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. struck a lower than a must say. on the reading of my easing mccarty leszek bills are over each recipient 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
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co-chair of a financial lobby organization. to lehman 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 this 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
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now the 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 was that a lot of public money was flowing to the banks. is the. ah distorter 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 well 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
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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 that this what we europeans had wanted. wasn't really naive to have a european dream. in the human nature and yet not only could you always have a 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 proof because otherwise people are going too fast on the
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motorway because people in a respected elss because the stronger take this case this is this is human nature what we have done to go and make sure that we leave together these by creating legislation in place by creating an authority that everyone respect.
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victims multiply here each day. it's very profitable to invest in colombia with that every profit out of it is a very high return on investment. good knowing that he has said that i've been working in this area for thirty years and i've always had to play the armed groups and i needed betis i knew that not a manager is a change their name a strategy but just feel the same murderous. high ranking suspects give no comment where you have to say about that mr president zuma. to president putin. but the media. i won't give an interview i'm sorry but no.
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investigation is a dead. he says. stop your bullshit and keep quiet or else you'll suffer the consequences. even if they're your bodyguards to why. themselves because the same goes for them. for. i've never heard of such a case as ours are so much money and gold has so many. for all the gold in colombia. technology innovation all the list of elements from around russia.
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and. i've.
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eliminated. that live. a little little bit illin. the time.

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