News
BackThe campaign “Politics for People” for lobby transparency at EU level, organised by ALTER-EU, AK & ÖGB and supported by a broad alliance of trade unions and civil society organisations from all over Europe was launched at the beginning of April. The candidates for the European elections were asked to pledge that they, in case they were elected to the European Parliament, would stand up for citizens and democracy and against the excessive lobby influence of banks and big business in Europe! More than 1300 candidates throughout Europe followed this appeal, among them 161 of the Austrian candidates.
Excessive lobbying of banks and big business
Even the bare figures illustrate that it is high time to force back the influence of the lobbyists of banks and big business. As a study commissioned by AK & ÖGB has shown, lobbyists of the financial industry are dominating the political agenda in Brussels. Hence, the annual budget of finance lobbyists amounts to about EUR 120 Million, whilst trade unions and non-governmental organisations (NGO) only have EUR 4 million available.
Another concerning finding is in respect of the personnel imbalance. There are 4 finance lobbyists for every person working in the banking or financial sector of the European Commission.
Such and similar circumstances were reasons for the European network for lobby transparency “ALTER-EU”, AK and ÖGB to jointly launch the campaign for cleaner lobbying at EU level.
Great response throughout Europe
By visiting the campaign homepage www.politicsforpeople.eu, citizens were given the opportunity to contact their candidates for the elections to the European Parliament and ask them to stand up against the excessive lobby-influence of banks big business in the EU.
Overall, more than 1300 candidates have supported this campaign, whereby it is especially positive from an Austrian point of view that the response to the campaign was particularly great in Austria.
Hence, in Austria 161 of the overall ca. 350 persons of all political factions standing for election made this promise, which makes Austria one of the Europe-wide front runners of “Politics for People”; only in Germany, where 237 candidates pledged their support, it has been possible to gain more supporters in absolute figures. However, based on her size and population, Austria is the country where most candidates followed the appeal of AK & ÖGB. Among the parties elected to the European Parliament, the SPÖ has 32 supporters; the Greens have 23 and NEOS 17. From the list of candidates of the FPÖ, 9 people have supported the campaign and from the ÖVP 7 candidates made this pledge.
Who made the pledge? Who was elected?
According to the votes counted so far, the 18 mandates for Austria in the European Parliament are distributed as follows: 5 MEPs each for ÖVP and SPÖ, 4 MEPs for the FPÖ, 3 for the Greens and 1 mandate for NEOS.
Among the probably 18 Austrians elected to the European Parliament are after all 13 people who made pledged on www.politicsforpeople.eu.
These are Elisabeth Köstinger and Claudia Schmidt of the ÖVP; Eugen Freund, Evelyn Regner, Jörg Leichtfried, Karin Kadenbach and Josef Weidenholzer of the SPÖ; Harald Vilimsky, Franz Obermayr and Georg Mayer of the FPÖ; Ulrike Lunacek, Michel Reimon and Monika Vana of the Greens.
Where do we go from here?
Parallel to the new European Parliament taking up its work this year, the next stage of the campaign “Politics for People” will begin.
From then on, it will be monitored and analysed whether the newly elected MEPs do indeed keep the promise they have made and whether they will use the next 5 years to actually support citizens and democracy and fight against the lobby supremacy of banks and big business.
For more information
www.politicsforpeople.eu
Even the bare figures illustrate that it is high time to force back the influence of the lobbyists of banks and big business. As a study commissioned by AK & ÖGB has shown, lobbyists of the financial industry are dominating the political agenda in Brussels. Hence, the annual budget of finance lobbyists amounts to about EUR 120 Million, whilst trade unions and non-governmental organisations (NGO) only have EUR 4 million available.
Another concerning finding is in respect of the personnel imbalance. There are 4 finance lobbyists for every person working in the banking or financial sector of the European Commission.
Such and similar circumstances were reasons for the European network for lobby transparency “ALTER-EU”, AK and ÖGB to jointly launch the campaign for cleaner lobbying at EU level.
Great response throughout Europe
By visiting the campaign homepage www.politicsforpeople.eu, citizens were given the opportunity to contact their candidates for the elections to the European Parliament and ask them to stand up against the excessive lobby-influence of banks big business in the EU.
Overall, more than 1300 candidates have supported this campaign, whereby it is especially positive from an Austrian point of view that the response to the campaign was particularly great in Austria.
Hence, in Austria 161 of the overall ca. 350 persons of all political factions standing for election made this promise, which makes Austria one of the Europe-wide front runners of “Politics for People”; only in Germany, where 237 candidates pledged their support, it has been possible to gain more supporters in absolute figures. However, based on her size and population, Austria is the country where most candidates followed the appeal of AK & ÖGB. Among the parties elected to the European Parliament, the SPÖ has 32 supporters; the Greens have 23 and NEOS 17. From the list of candidates of the FPÖ, 9 people have supported the campaign and from the ÖVP 7 candidates made this pledge.
Who made the pledge? Who was elected?
According to the votes counted so far, the 18 mandates for Austria in the European Parliament are distributed as follows: 5 MEPs each for ÖVP and SPÖ, 4 MEPs for the FPÖ, 3 for the Greens and 1 mandate for NEOS.
Among the probably 18 Austrians elected to the European Parliament are after all 13 people who made pledged on www.politicsforpeople.eu.
These are Elisabeth Köstinger and Claudia Schmidt of the ÖVP; Eugen Freund, Evelyn Regner, Jörg Leichtfried, Karin Kadenbach and Josef Weidenholzer of the SPÖ; Harald Vilimsky, Franz Obermayr and Georg Mayer of the FPÖ; Ulrike Lunacek, Michel Reimon and Monika Vana of the Greens.
Where do we go from here?
Parallel to the new European Parliament taking up its work this year, the next stage of the campaign “Politics for People” will begin.
From then on, it will be monitored and analysed whether the newly elected MEPs do indeed keep the promise they have made and whether they will use the next 5 years to actually support citizens and democracy and fight against the lobby supremacy of banks and big business.
For more information
www.politicsforpeople.eu