alt Hacker NewsThe US polluters that are rewriting the EU's human rights and climate law
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I'm atheist, yet the behavior of Big Oil over these past decades is strong evidence that demonic possession may in fact be real.
This article is written as though lobbying is some sort of unstoppable force.
EU regulators are paid out of EU taxpayers' money, taken by an actual unstoppable force, on the sole promise that they will do a good job of writing some words down on paper.
If they can't even do that then you need to blame them. Not people who talk to them.
Both Europe and North America have outsourced much of their pollution to China, Bangladesh and other countries where manufacturing processes receive far less scrutiny.
and, as if this was not bad enough, now I will have to read American idiots’ ramblings
Slavery is alive and well. The sick continues to infect the healthy.
Well, under this interpretation all lobbying basically circumvents sovereign democracy, there's nothing out of the ordinary I found out in this article other than business as usual.
And the thing is, lobbying by domestic and foreign interests has been so normalized, that most people are already numb to it. Like Putin was even visiting his Austrian politicians buddies who then got jobs at Russian oil and gas companies after their terms and nobody in EU kicked much fuss about it when it was all done public and in the open and in 2022 we got to experience the consequences.
So as long as nobody from politics is going to jail for treason or insurrection, or at least lose their seat and generous pension over such blatant cases of corruption and treason, this will only continue or even grow larger, as those in power have proven to be unaccountable to anyone.
I don't know how we(the public) can fix this peacefully an democratically, as any party I can vote for gets captured by lobbyist interests who seek to undermine our interests.
The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) introduces (yet another) massive administrative burden on EU companies requiring them to check all their subcontractors by "identify actual or potential risks and harm to human rights and the environment as well as establishing processes and standards to diminish these risks". Using human rights and climate arguments the EU micro-manages everything and I have given up on the idea that the EU can be reformed.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Sustainability_Due_D...
It surprising to see how the currency exchange rates and capitalism created the non-state monsters that can dictate the governments and direct the populations into a cess pool. The Pied Piper monsters.
"""Leaked documents [1] obtained by SOMO reveal how, under the pretext of the now-near-magical concept of ‘competitiveness’"""
I was a bit disappointed when I clicked the the link called "1" following leaked documents I got a short note on the document, but apparently no link to the document.
So I scrolled dow to the bottom figuring the number and link was a reference to the appendix but that did not appear to be case.
Similar link looking numbers appear to work the same way.
> Leaked documents 1 obtained by SOMO reveal how, under the pretext of the now-near-magical concept of ‘competitiveness’, these companies plotted to hijack democratically adopted EU laws and strip them of all meaningful provisions, including those on climate transition plans, civil liability, and the scope of supply chains. EU officials appear not to have known who they were up against.
I'm seeing the exact same narrative more and more right here on HN, in every thread in any way related to the EU - the idea that the likes of GDPR are destroying "competitiveness". That if only all of it would be axed, "competitiveness" would arise once more.
It's not a coincidence, especially with so much FAANG employees, either ex- or current, who spend even more on lobbying than the likes of Exxon highlighted in this article. Though it seems naive to blindly hope that even in the age of mass astroturfing, this place is somehow immune.
It's frightening just how similar the playbook and the players involved are, big oil and big tech being oh so alike.
This is, unfortunately, what Europeans collectivelly voted for.
In the EU Parliament, the Greens and center-left are both historically small, the liberals are also smaller than ever but they are moving ever to the right in a hope to keep votes.
Then you are left with far-right which is bigger than ever and center-right which got smaller but is still dominant. Both of these don't really care much for human rights and climate law.
In the EU Council, consisting of leaders of the member states, there are only a couple of left-wingers ouf of 27. The rest is (center-)right. Zero greens.
The EU green laws will have to be rewritten anyway. They are not of this world.
In the next tab, I am reading (in Czech) an article titled "Shall we produce tanks out of wood?" which addresses the fact that pushing all steel production out of Europe through unrealistic pollution demands and other regulations cannot be squared with maintaining any ability to defend ourselves.
(Link for the interested people: https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/ekonomika-byznys-rozhovor...)
Pushing for competitiveness is one thing, but why so devious? Secretly pushing for a more right wing crap.
Pisses me right off
And there's nothing you can do about it. The EU is not a democratic institution, I hope you're comfortable with an executive led by people who have not seen a single election in their lives.
People like to hold up Macron as being a good politician on the EU level, but from this it seems he has to go and is in the same league as the more obvious harmful Merz.
These directives are mostly useless bureaucracy. I don't think anything of value has been lost.
My experience with European Union is that the EU politicians mostly live in a ivory tower and spend their days producing garbage laws and aren't actually addressing anything important.
Just imagine what we will find the day where the truth will leak about who and why things like "Chat Control" are pushed down our throat despite going against citizens will.