EUROPE INC.
Regional & Global Restructuring and the Rise of Corporate Power
by Belen Balanya, Ann Doherty, Olivier Hoedeman, Adam Ma'anit and Erik Wesselius:
First published in 1997 by Corporate Europe Observatory, this report was
originally sub-titled 'Dangerous Liaisons between EU Institutions and
Industry' and despite its new subtitle, 'Regional & Global Restructuring
and the Rise of Corporate Power' it is these hierarchical liaisons that
CEO seek to explain, vis why the 1990s saw an earthquake-like shift in the
European Union towards policies that have become responsible for the low,
painful disintegration of peoples' livelihoods and ultimately their lives.
Europe Inc. describes how corporations, from having had hardly any contact
with the European Commission throughout the 70's, overnight appeared to
put links in place.
They wasted no time preparing the ground for an
internal market. When they had achieved that, they moved swiftly to the
second item on their agenda, a flawless transport system to move their
products and increase their profits. In 1991 a commitment to construct
such a system was written into the Maastrict Treaty but this wasn't fast
enough for the corporates. Before the 1992 Summit in Edinburgh, they wrote
to heads of state calling for additional funding for the Trans-European
Network. The EU leaders obliged. An investment fund worth seven billion
ecu was set up.
Since then an estimated budget of 400 billion ecu has aided more than 150
projects, at a pace that most people are oblivious to. But the
environmental damage is now becoming obvious all over Europe as activists
attempt to stop the corporate juggernaut. In 1995 Greenpeace Switzerland
estimated that the improved transportation network would contribute a
15%-18% increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Other green groups announced
the imminent destruction of around 60 natural sites of national and
European importance.
Pluto Press
|
