Feature story - November 15, 2005
BRUSSELS, Belgium — A removal team has arrived at the European Commission to move two senior commissioners into new jobs with their best friends in dirty industry. Given the determined efforts of EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Industry Commissioner Günter Verheugen to put polluting industry before public interests we think they would be better employed elsewhere.
Some politicians in Europe are bending over backwards to put dirty industry profits before public interest.
Greenpeace activists dressed as a removal team, complete with
European Commission Clean Up Co. overalls arrived to move Barroso
and Verheugen out of the Commission building and across town to
their favourite lobbying locations. Moving office leaflets where
distributed to EU staff to explain that Mr Barroso would be moving
to take up a job with the CEFIC - the European chemicals industry
association that has spent millions on lobbying against stronger
chemical law. Mr Verheugen will be moving to German chemical giant
BASF, the leading company bankrolling the back room trashing of
proposals for stronger chemical law. Both politicians have traded
public interest in their attempts to water down the proposed EU
chemicals policy (REACH).
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Why exactly should they move?
One of our removal team - Nadia Haiama of the Greenpeace
European Unit explains: "Children are being born with a cocktail of
hazardous chemicals in their bloodstream and Mr Barroso and Mr
Verheugen are supporting companies that want to go on producing
these substances. It is not surprising that the chemicals industry
fights for the right to pollute with impunity, but when the
European Commission defends that position, something is wrong. If
Mr Barroso and Mr Verheugen intend to put chemicals industry
profits before the public interest, they should move. We've come to
help them relocate to where their heart seems to be."
Fix required - but trashing in progress
Current chemicals legislation is failing to protect our health.
Humans and the environment are exposed to a wide range of
potentially harmful manmade chemicals. Hazardous chemicals have
been repeatedly found in the environment and in human bodies,
including foetuses, and represent a threat for all sections of
society, from workers to children. For most chemicals on the market
there exists no or insufficient information to assess their effects
on human health or the environment.
In Europe there is an attempt to fix this with the new REACH law
but almost from the moment it was suggested it has been under fire
from vested interests who profit from pollution. The toxic twins,
Barroso and Verheugen, are attempting to drive the final nail in
the coffin of the already weakened EU chemicals reform, being
cheered on by their dirty industry friends. Instead of defending
the public interest, their actions are becoming a threat to our
health and environment.
If successful, the industry-led sabotage of REACH supported by
Messrs Barroso and Verheugen would:
- Allow 20,000 chemicals onto the market without basic health and
safety data;
- Let health and safety information on chemicals fall below
internationally recognised minimum requirements;
- Deprive chemical users and retailers of information on
hazardous chemicals contaminating their supply chain;
- Give industry the right to use hazardous chemicals even when
safer substitutes exist.
Medical, scientific, trade union and environmental experts all
support a strong chemical law. Mr Barroso and Mr Verheugen appear
to prefer the arguments of the chemicals industry.
Are shortsighted business interests more compelling than the health of
millions of citizens and future generations? We don't think so.
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