More than 50 NGOs, brought together by the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), have urged the EU Commission to cut down the disproportionate corporate influence on Brussels policy making. In an open letter to designated Commission President José Manuel Barroso, the NGOs claim 15.000 Brussels lobbyists, "assisted by an army of public affairs consultants, today play a powerful and increasingly undemocratic role in the EU political process". The groups mostly come from environmental, anti-globalisation and Third World movements.

They also criticise "revolving door' cases", naming the example of former Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan, "who less than a year after leaving the European Commission became not only consultant on WTO issues at the law firm Herbert Smith, but also Vice-Chairman of the investment bank UBS Warburg and Advisory Director at Unilever. Soon after, he also accepted the Chairmanship of the LOTIS Committee of International Financial Services London (IFSL), a lobby group representing the UK financial industry."

After the withdrawal of his first line-up on 26 October, the designated President of the European Commission, José Manuel Durrão Barroso, is expected to present a new team tomorrow (4 November), during the European Council meeting in Brussels. Two of the most controversial Commissioners-designate will not be part of the college Barroso is expected to present. Rocco Buttiglione, who was to become Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, has withdrawn his candidature, while the Latvian government has withdrawn Ingrida Udre, whom Barroso had appointed to the taxation brief.

While the government in Riga has already nominated Andris Piebalgs - a former Finance Minister and Ambassador to the EU - to replace Mrs. Udre, Italy's Silvio Berlusconi still keeps the replacement of Buttiglione secret. The odds are high that the new candidate will be the country's present Minister of Foreign Affairs, Franco Frattini.

On 11 October, the Civil Liberties Committee of the European parliament (LIBE) organised a hearing on the Safer Internet Plus programme, covering 50 million euro for the years 2005-2008. Learning from past discussions in the European Parliament on the effectivity of this funding, the Commission wrote a pre-evaluation of the action plan. Rapporteur Edith Mastenbroek (Dutch Labour party) wholeheartedly agreed with the commission in putting the main focus on end-user empowerment, as opposed to central filtering. She suggested one major alteration in the suggested spending; in stead of spending 16 to 23% on the development of filter software and software for hotlines, she suggested to move that budget to the action line of raising public awareness (already taking 43 to 50% of the funding). The Commission should only fund research into the performance and the transparency of filter software.

José Manuel Barroso, the designated President of the European Commission, is working hard to find a compromise on the position of Mr. Buttiglione, the Italian candidate Commissioner for Justice and Civil Liberties. By a small majority, the Europarl Committee on Civil Liberties rejected his candidacy on 11 October, knowing well they can not oust single candidate Commissioners.

Barroso has met with leaders of the PSE (Social-Democrat) and ALDE (Liberal / Centrist) Groups in an effort to find a compromise that would be acceptable to the Italian government as well as to the MEPs opposed to the right-wing Conservative politician being in charge of anti-discrimination and Civil Liberties.

One option that is currently being discussed would be for Mr. Buttiglione to keep his job as the future head of the Justice, Freedom and Security Directorate General, but to have to pass competences in the fields of combating discrimination to other Commissioners, for example to Wladimir Spidla, who will be in charge of Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities.

Civil Society representatives, user and consumer advocates were not allowed to voice their concerns on social, cultural and economic consequences of a wide-spread introduction of so-called Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology during a hearing organized by the European Commission on 11 October, in Brussels. Stopping short from actually censoring these concerns, which were voiced by a large number of advocacy groups and individuals during a recent consultation on DRM, the Commission's DG Internal Market, who organized the event, invited only a few representatives of organizations that had taken a critical stance towards DRM.

Instead, lobbyists representing industry firms hoping to make big money with the technology were given abundant speaking time, very often two to three times as much as the allowed five-minute limit. This led to time running out in the end. And only at the very end the slot was planned during which most Civil Society speakers hoped to voice their concerns or talk about the various court cases that consumers have won against producers of media made useless by DRM. Thus the theme 'Developments in case law as well as relevant economic, social or cultural or technological developments' was skipped from the agenda.

Civil Society representatives, user and consumer advocates were left almost speechless yesterday, October 11, at a hearing organised by the European Commission on Digital Rights Management. Due to the invitation policy of the Commission's DG Internal Market, the event, organized to help the Committee established under Article 12 of the EU Copyright Directive evaluate the way Article 6 of that same Directive is being transposed, was entirely dominated by the Digital Rights Management Iindustry and by representatives of collecting societies.

The European Commission and the Dutch EU presidency have distributed 2 new questionnaires on spam, "to assess progress in the EU on combating 'spam' following the Communication on this issue of January 2004 that identified relevant action for all interested parties." One questionnaire is addressed to industry, the second questionnaire to Member States and the competent regulatory authorities.

Based on the answers, the Commission will organise an open workshop, provisionally scheduled for 17 November 2004. By the end of 2004 the Commission will determine if additional or corrective action is needed. Answers must be provided by 20 October 2004.

Workshop information (05.10.2004)
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/topics/ecomm/useful_informati...

Representatives of the European Parliament's Social Democrat, Liberal, Green and Left Groups uttered harsh words after the Parliamentary hearing of Rocco Buttiglione (Italy), Commissioner-designate for Justice, Freedom and Security and designated Vice-President of the European Commission. He was interrogated a second time by the parliamentary Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) on Wednesday 5 October.

"The groups representing the majority of the Members of the Parliamentary Committee estimate that the moral and political convictions of the Vice-president-designate do not offer in any manner the guarantee that he will engage against discrimination, in particular with regard to sexual orientation, as actively as the Parliament would wish. The standpoint of the vice-president-designate on the role of women in society and on the supposed immorality of homosexuality causes apprehensions with these groups that the Commission's capacity of legislative initiative be emptied of all or part of its reality." Mr. Buttiglione, a staunch right-wing Catholic, had angered the MEPs with his remarks on conservative family values.