Rushing to create laws due to outrage is the worst thing for small players. The big players will find the loopholes quickly and the smaller players in the sector feel the hurt of regulation.
Lobbying is a core pillar of democracy. Yeah, I know, I dont like it either. But that's reality and no amount of prohibition will stop humans from being human.
The solution is clear: everyone needs to lobby for their interests and the people should all fund (crowdsourcing) organizations that lobby for politics they want done.
Transparency of lobbying, while benefitial is not a solution.
The way lobbying is done in the US ensures that the rich and powerful will always have a greater say than everyone else. It's not unlike a bribery scheme in that sense.
Normal people don't have the time, money, or connections to effectively lobby. The best that you can do is kick a few bucks to some NGO that seems to be in line with your stance on whatever issue. But that's really just making the whole problem worse rather than working to having a government that is better at representing the people.
I'm good at reaching out to my representatives. I consider it a civic duty. But I don't for a moment think that doing that is "effective" when compared to the massive amount of corporate lobbying.
I can't wine and dine them, kick large amounts of money to their favorite charities, take them on expensive "junkets", etc.
This seems like a tautology, if they didn't have a greater say then they wouldn't qualify as 'rich and powerful' in the first place, but as average people.
You realise that lobbying is literally sitting down for a cup of coffee with "a friend", right?
It's a whole different world of probal that would require an authoritarian state with an absolute control over people's lives... And at that point it becomes moot.
Remind me of the last time corporations got a Constitutional amendment passed?
Have you met a lawmaker, or been involved in the passage of a law? The state of civics education in America is such that a minority of folks understand the first rule of politics: showing up is half the battle. Unfortunately, pitching nihilism is a good way to keep the other side from bothering.
Why do you assume I live in the USA? No, I haven't been part of any legislation process in the USA because I do not live there.
No need for Constitutional amendments when the healthcare and insurance industry in the USA (the biggest spenders in lobbying afaik) can lobby politicians to block legislation setting caps on drug prices paid by the government through ACA, or to keep the dysfunctional system of health insurance you live under.
Let me know when citizens can spend some US$ 8-10b on lobbying for universal healthcare, just like the combined spending of healthcare + insurance industries...
And just a quick edit: setting the NRA as an example of citizens' association lobbying is a bit tone deaf given what they do for the weapons industry, it's another very good case for how lobbying can be detrimental to society by hiding big corporations interests behind what is seemingly a citizens' association.
Edit as a form of last reply since I got rate limited:
You edited the comment to remove the sentence saying "state or federally" which implied to me you were talking about the USA. A bit of a dishonest response after such edit...
I have in America, a few European states and India. The people who benefit from restrictions on lobbying are those with personal access to power. Because the lobbyists let the little people and those faraway get the access they believe they earned, bought or were born into.
There are tons of (non-rich) lobbying groups like this, for things like climate action, labour rights, consumer rights, etc.
Of course, it's probably correct that lobbying is probably skewed towards the rich. And maybe we need to correct for that. But then the question becomes "should we correct the influence of money in lobbying, and if so, how?"
Lobbying is not "the rich". It's large economic sectors that account for many jobs and economic activity. It is right that they be allowed to make their views and interests known in a transparent way. They will anyway as they have the resources and contacts, so we might as well have an official, transparent channel.
> Lobbying is not "the rich". It's large economic sectors that account for many jobs and economic activity. It is right that they be allowed to make their views and interests known in a transparent way. They will anyway as they have the resources and contacts, so we might as well have an official, transparent channel.
Corporations aren't citizens though. Politics exists to represent the people, not the corporations. They shouldn't have any influence over politics. The economy is not a goal on its own, it's only there for the benefit of the citizens.
And they already have a really heavy influence in favour of their goals in terms of all their employees, shareholders etc who can vote. They already have adequate representation that way.
We're not as bad as the US yet with all the heavy campaign contributions with strings attached, but we don't want to end up there either. So I'm very happy the huge multinationals get some pushback.
Thank god the EU (and sometimes Cali) are finally standing up to these huge tech companies. The federal legislative and executive branches of BOTH parties don't seem to have that type of spine as the stagnant wages and purchasing power of millennials and gen z continues its death spiral.
As an EU citizen, it does not sit well with my idea of a free democratic society to ban an interest group from making representation just because they refuse to subject themselves to what are little more than "show trials" conducted for politicians' own benefits.
It's only the second time in history that a lobbying entity is banned. Second time since Monsanto in 2017. That's not a "path". Source: the first paragraph of the article.
This has nothing to do with "show trials". If you hold 14 lobbying badges and do not respect the European Parliament's Employment Committee's repeated requests to discuss important matters of employment in the European Union, then Amazon is really showing contempt for the lawmakers and the European institutions.
It's very understandable why they are talking about a "red line" here: If a company of the size and importance of Amazon refuses to sit down with lawmakers and discuss problems caused by their commercial activities on a European-wide scale, then they're not showing the kind of social and political responsibility that's fair to require from a corporation with direct access to European lawmakers.
The decisive body seems to agree:
> all quaestors were in favour of authorising the secretary general to withdraw their long-term access badges
They wouldn't have been banned if they were present when required, right? What should be the rules then, they can pick and choose when they are present because it's convenient to them or should they be around when it's also not in their interests but in the interest of the EU?
Almost every political action is for politicians' benefit, that's the whole incentive, it's unfortunate because I'd prefer a world where politicians just do the right thing but we can't have a political system that depends on the morality of everyone involved to do the right thing.
Reading between the lines, there is likely no legal obligation for Amazon to attend those hearings, which again sound like Soviet show trials against them for purely political and ideological reasons.
Again, if Amazon has been breaking the law in their warehouses that's the job of the courts and employment tribunals.
The EU Parliament has been going from bad to worse over the years, it's now just ideology and populism. Instead of using Amazon as punching ball they should rather ponder why the EU economy and EU companies are falling behind...
> Instead of using Amazon as punching ball they should rather ponder why the EU economy and EU companies are falling behind...
Probably because it's not a free-for-all on who makes more money with no accountability to 2nd and 3rd order effects on society. If we care about citizens' wellbeing before profits there are many things that become less profitable and/or competitive than in places with less safeguards against corporations damages.
> If we care about citizens' wellbeing before profits
That's a meaningless slogan and not mutually exclusive.
Ultimately without profits and a productive economy the citizens' wellbeing will become unaffordable and take a nosedive. This is already happening throughout Europe.
It's not a meaningless slogan, it means to consider the balance between economic growth vs potential damage caused by growth as a goal.
Consider the case for food, you can remove regulations and let it be a free for all race to the bottom to who can produce the most food for the cheapest price without a care about the environment, food safety or how sustainable it will be; or you can try to regulate known externalities that will cause an increase in costs, prices but will reduce damages to society as a whole.
Or the case for heavy industry, you can deregulate everything and not care about worker safety, environmental impact, and allow factories to be placed near water reservoirs with no water treatment; or you try to zone out factories to places with less impact to populated areas, require them to treat waste, impose restrictions on how they should gas out potential harmful by-products (CO2, sulfides, etc.).
The whole point is to strike a balance between economic growth and not allowing this growth to be detrimental to society in the long-term, it's a pretty damn complex task and a whole apparatus exist around it exactly because it's not simple.
If this is meaningless to you then I'm sorry but we have very different worldviews to how economic growth should be attained; I'd much rather have societies thinking about this rather than purely pushing economic growth at all costs, damned be the ones suffering from its side-effects.
> Ultimately without profits and a productive economy the citizens' wellbeing will become unaffordable and take a nosedive. This is already happening throughout Europe.
I don't believe it's happening throughout Europe, it's still one of the richest places on the entire Earth, it might be lagging behind the USA's and China's growth but both of these societies suffer much more the side-effects of their growth (and push those onto humanity as a whole when considering emissions of greenhouse gasses).
> Reading between the lines, there is likely no legal obligation for Amazon to attend those hearings
Is there a legal obligation for Amazon to have access to the European parliament?
When Amazon is ignoring the Parliament when they seek to talk to them, it just seems fair that the Parliament is ignoring Amazon when they want to talk.
This is just physically banning them from parliament buildings, which seems pointless. I don't think modern lobbyists work by literally waiting in the lobby anymore.
The EU has some pretty strict rules around transparency in lobbying (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-service/en/transparen...). It sounds like meetings between MEPs and interest groups (lobbyists) need to be documented pretty thoroughly. I imagine it’s probably easier for MEPs to meet with lobbyists in the parliament as opposed to outside of it, or maybe there are even rules that discourage such outside lobbying.
As the article notes, Amazon did meet with MEPs pretty frequently in the parliament buildings, suggesting that this ban will have some impact on their lobbying efforts.
Amazon lobbyists would still be allowed if they followed their end of the deal: show up when it was required to attend regarding working conditions. They didn't so yes, it flies.
In the US due process is also rife with corruption, a layered form where if you have enough money to pay a stellar legal team you'll find loopholes and appeals processes to massage your way through.
I'm frequently surprised, given Amazon's size, how little of a non-US presence it has. It's in other countries, sure, but not in the same way as the US. Seeing things like this makes me wonder if Amazon doesn't know how to adapt to other markets.
Regional and national media are swallowing it up, yeah the country needs the investment, but at what price ? Gov still mum on what it took to 'land' the deal (tax/land break).
I remembered the Amazon HQ2 hoopla from years back, that U.S state/local govs were turning over backwards to land it, offering a lot of incentives. And I just looked the yesterday, that deal (HQ2) is still on hold and it was for just as much ($5 billion).
Lots of countries have freight forwarding services were you buy from the US Amazon site and have it forwarded to your country. This avoids the hasle to Amazon of dealing with the country directly. Florida has special zip codes with 0% sales tax with the understanding that such goods are going overseas. In my current country you can basically buy whatever you want from Amazon US cheaper and easier than you can locally.
Im quite confused on why it is popular in the first place. The ux is horrible, customer service is non existent, the speed of delivery is the same or slower as others and the price is the same as others.
>>> Amazon is a frequent visitor to the EU Parliament. In January alone, it had nine meetings with MEPs, including a meeting just a day after the hearing.
And what were the other 9? I hate when they say hand wave details. If they were to amazons benefit then state what they were. Otherwise it looks like you're tugging at facts.
That's not important; it's just to establish that Amazon lobbyists are active. The reason they were banned is because of their refusal to attend the hearings. That is: "either fully participate or don't participate at all – you can't pick and choose what's convenient for you".
This is also what Amazon's reply addresses. I don't know if Amazon's claims that these meetings are "clearly one-sided and not designed to encourage constructive debate or objective scrutiny" are accurate.
I don't agree with this decision. As an American, I'm not quite sure of the rights of Europeans, but in America, we have the right to petition the government for redress - lobby, in short. It's part of our basic, fundamental rights. Amazon, yes even a corporation, should have the right to petition a governing body.
You're right, they should face consequences, but not the lobbying. They still should have the right to address the government. If they are not showing up for hearings, and that is punishable, then you can punish them with fines. But to block them from, addressing the government entirely is abhorrent to me.
No one watch EU auditions. At most I'll read a short resume. It also is way more impersonal than French senate's audition with clear rules to limit spectacular actions/speech from auditors.
They shouldn’t be allowed to pick and choose what to show up for. If they don’t want to attend hearings, then they shouldn’t get to lobby (meet with) MEPs.
> Lobbyists to be banned from European parliament