The Brussels Business - Who Runs the EU ? - 2012 HD
September 23, 2016 8:05 AM   Subscribe

CEO Documentary: "THE BRUSSELS BUSINESS is a docu-thriller that dives into the grey zone underneath European democracy. An expedition into the world of the 15,000 lobbyists in the EU-capital, of the PR-conglomerates, think tanks and their all embracing networks of power and their close ties to the political elites." Spoiler: "2500 Lobby Structures are based in Brussels, 15,000 lobbyists, the 2nd biggest lobby industry in the world, only Washington DC is bigger..." [slyt - Warning - it starts slowly, but is worth sticking with.]
posted by marienbad (26 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
The silver lining underneath Brexit..
posted by ocschwar at 8:59 AM on September 23, 2016


Uh...Meister Blaster?
posted by clockzero at 9:38 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Where's our 350 million quid a week for the NHS that was promised, endlessly, and displayed at every Brexit rally? Where is it, then?
posted by Wordshore at 9:43 AM on September 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


> Where's our 350 million quid a week for the NHS that was promised, endlessly, and displayed at every Brexit rally? Where is it, then?
The UK is still a EU member, so that's not changing anytime soon.

Anyway, I watched the free-market propaganda piece that is Brexit: The Movie and didn't particularly enjoy the experience. Is this Brussels Business at least slightly more reality-based?
posted by farlukar at 10:02 AM on September 23, 2016


I can think of much worse things than to be ruled by slightly dull Belgian civil servants.
posted by Damienmce at 10:16 AM on September 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


You say that now, but wait until hundreds are aloft in the blue, almost-cloudless sky, clad in black coats and bowlers and carrying their signature umbrellas.
posted by the sobsister at 10:19 AM on September 23, 2016 [9 favorites]


I guess one question is whether a large lobbying industry implies a captive state or one which it takes a lot of work to lobby. And I guess another question is whether industry input into standards is a bad thing.

I'm afraid I'm not sure I can put the time in to watch it. One of my biggest problems with both documentaries and the narrative around the EU is how they deal with organisational structures. Something will be there in writing, fully available for all who are interested to see in its proper context, and yet the documentary or EU journalist will present it as "hidden in this obscure list of rules is this shocking thing", and yet once the viewer goes of and researches the context, it's clearly totally reasonable. So, no, I'm fairly convinced that the EU is a reasonable organisation and not particularly in need of being persuaded otherwise.
posted by ambrosen at 10:29 AM on September 23, 2016 [8 favorites]


So the EU, with a population of 750 million, has fewer lobbyists than the US, with a population of 330 million? How could the EU *not* have the second-largest number of lobbyists after the US? The EU is practically the only peer the United States has.

Isn't the fact that the EU, with a larger population, has fewer lobbyists than the US a *good thing*???

It would be interesting to see how many lobbyists there are in India, Indonesia, Philippines and other populous nations. But none of them are quite the same thing as either the EU or the US, and none of them are as legally complex as either entities, except for India, probably.
posted by My Dad at 10:53 AM on September 23, 2016 [13 favorites]


Where's our 350 million quid a week for the NHS that was promised, endlessly, and displayed at every Brexit rally? Where is it, then?

Remain voters see evidence that there have been few or no bad economic consequences from Brexit: "Well that's because we haven't left yet."

Remain voters say they haven't seen the £350 million for the NHS yet: "But you said we could have it when we left!"
posted by Coda Tronca at 11:21 AM on September 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


If getting the £350m for the NHS was still on the cards, that would be one thing, but that particular idea was dropped literally on the morning of the results. And it would never have been £350m anyway - the net contribution to the EU is about £100m less.
posted by doop at 12:30 PM on September 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


Erm, given that this - rather well-made - documentary has nothing to do with Brexit, can we avoid the derail?

Is this Brussels Business at least slightly more reality-based?

It's a pretty in-depth reconstruction, based on documents (some public, some obtained otherwise) and interviews with the heads two major Brussels lobbying groups, of a side of EU policy-forging which never appears in any newsmedia.

I can think of much worse things than to be ruled by slightly dull Belgian civil servants.

Well, that's not what the documentary is about - but you might be interested in finding out who does come into play when the EC is defining the ruling policies that various countries' civil servants are then tasked to implement.

One of my biggest problems with both documentaries and the narrative around the EU is how they deal with organisational structures. Something will be there in writing, fully available for all who are interested to see in its proper context, and yet the documentary or EU journalist will present it as "hidden in this obscure list of rules is this shocking thing", and yet once the viewer goes of and researches the context, it's clearly totally reasonable. So, no, I'm fairly convinced that the EU is a reasonable organisation and not particularly in need of being persuaded otherwise.

The documentary is not arguing that the EU as such isn't a reasonable organisation, it is shining a light onto how the EU's defining moments (the institution of the single market, for example) were secretly shaped not by public volition, vote, nor expert opinion, but by concerted corporate interest, which sensed a void of public debate, which it promptly (and very privately) filled, to the advantage of its agenda. Documenting how, from its very first steps under Jacques Delors, EU public officials practically copy&pasted industry recommendations to make EC policy... well, though long suspected, it's pretty rare to see it laid out quite so plainly; and it helps to identify what's actually wrong in Brusseld: not anonymous bureaucrats, but straightforward corporate corruption, enabled by weak public political discourse & endeavour.

It's enlightening, for example, to see the head of the services industry lobby opine quite candidly that this is surely the natural order of things, after all, "trade is owned by companies, not by NGO's" - a poignant quip, commenting the protests that first found a noticeable collective voice at the Seattle WTO summit in 1999.

One thing the CEO activists don't seem to connect to the early insuccesses at denouncing their discovery of bad politicking, is: why did the media never highlight their findings, when they published them. Who are the media beholden to?
posted by progosk at 12:47 PM on September 23, 2016 [7 favorites]


> can we avoid the derail?
Sorries, I'm just a bit wary of EU-related documentaries since that-what-cannot-be-named.
Will watch when I have the spare time.
posted by farlukar at 12:55 PM on September 23, 2016


Short it ain't - but your patience will be rewarded by the temporarily victorious smirk of Estonian vice-commissioner Siim Kallas' moustache.

A question the documentary leaves unanswered: have interviewees Keith Richardson (former secretary general of the ERT) and the Pascal Kerneis (managing director of the ESF) signed their organisations up in Kallas' (sadly only voluntary) lobbyist register, in the name of the "regulation" they too say they champion?
posted by progosk at 1:27 PM on September 23, 2016


it is shining a light onto how the EU's defining moments (the institution of the single market, for example) were secretly shaped not by public volition, vote, nor expert opinion, but by concerted corporate interest, which sensed a void of public debate, which it promptly (and very privately) filled, to the advantage of its agenda

Very much like almost everything that's happened in government in Britain for my entire lifetime, then. The problem with the way that narratives about the EU work is that, young and "sui generis" as it is, every question about it is seems to become an existential one. And there can be no comment on EU practice or policy that does not end up aligned with either the "pro-European" or "anti-European" perspective. It's impossible to criticise a part without that becoming fodder for criticism of the existence of the whole. It's a bit like narratives around Israel, in a way. Holding any sort of nuanced position takes enormous effort when the debate is so polarised.

None of that is a reason to refrain from criticising the EU in a sane and intelligible manner, it's just that there's no real appetite among the European population for a debate on EU reform.

It's a pain in the arse, and, possibly more than anything else, presents a threat to the existence of the EU. The EU is in dire need of reform, not because it's worse than other institutions, but because it has to be better than them in order to survive.
posted by howfar at 4:21 PM on September 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


For the commenters who don't seem to have watched the documentary, it's actually about lobbying and corruption in the European Union, not about whether the EU is good or bad, whether it should even be, certainly not about Brexit—but a clearly researched expose of Big Business' hand in its creation and continuing operation. (I expected more from Metafilter than this don't really care dismissal. It's well worth the time, although I recommend watching at 1.25 speed.)
posted by blue shadows at 9:28 PM on September 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


I think the fact that it's (a) an hour and twenty five minutes long, (b) presented with very limited context and (c) shared by one of Metafilter's most vocal Eurosceptics has a lot to do with that. It's probably (definitely?) unfair, but those Brexit threads were pretty brutal at times.
posted by howfar at 12:12 AM on September 24, 2016 [7 favorites]


Does the documentary go into the topic of no more roaming cost, as an example of how lobbying doesn't always influence policy, and how even very powerful lobbyists did not manage to avoid this?

For non-Europeans: we used to have absurdly high roaming costs. Going to another country (which is not that big of a deal if you live in a tiny country) sometimes meant astronomically high phone bills. Roaming costs have decreased every year, per EU regulations. And as of next year, there will be no roaming costs (there's still some discussion about a limit in months for that, but for regular tourists/business travellers, this will be so much of an improvement it's hard to understate how awesome this is). Not for calls, not for data. The telecom industry is huge, and powerful. I never thought roaming costs would actually be abolished.

And for a non-awesome example: the ridiculous cookie law (every website must give a warning that it sets cookies). How did that get through (and how is that not abolished yet) when we have such powerful web companies?

Not saying that lobbying therefore isn't problematic at all, but just wondering whether this documentary tries to present a balanced view, or if it's more a "SHOCKING NEWS" kind of documentary. Because the way this is presented I get the impression that it's the latter, but maybe that's just the framing of the post.
posted by blub at 1:04 AM on September 24, 2016 [2 favorites]


It doesn't, blub, as it's more an illustration of the efforts of one NGO, labouring for transparency in the "Brussels bubble".
It's always great to get a look behind the scenes - in that sense, an exposé, or even better: a regular, accessible source monitoring EU successes and failures (you know, what newsmedia used to do...) would be equally interesting. The more unchecked lobbies occupy the head-space of EC and EU actors, the more urgent food and space for public thought and debate become.
posted by progosk at 2:03 AM on September 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


I get that this starts slow, but I'm 25 minutes in and the excessive use of b-roll, reenactments, and X-Files-worthy music is driving me kind of nuts.

Anyone want to recommend a good feature article on the insidious influence of Brussels lobbyists, instead?
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:34 PM on September 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


If getting the £350m for the NHS was still on the cards, that would be one thing

It's partially back.
posted by Coda Tronca at 8:43 AM on September 25, 2016


Only if the foreign secretary is now making Treasury policy.
posted by howfar at 8:55 AM on September 25, 2016


And, of course, if all the signs of another recession turn out to be wrong, and we magically somehow have this money that Boris is giving himself the power to spend on the NHS (although without really making any specific commitments, I note).
posted by howfar at 8:59 AM on September 25, 2016


The £350m for the NHS is no more or less likely than the total collapse of the British economy that Project Fear earnestly told us was coming. And still pop up to say again regularly.

All that matters now is whether Corbyn's Labour Party can become the vehicle for soft Brexit (i.e. Brexit that means nothing other than appeasing the populace), which is what capitalism/ruling elites urgently demand. It seems more likely that it can, Syriza-style, rather than the Tories who while drunk on being the party of naturally ruling capitalism always tear themselves to bits over the EU.
posted by Coda Tronca at 12:13 PM on September 25, 2016


All that matters now is whether Corbyn's Labour Party can become the vehicle for soft Brexit

I'm a Labour member and activist. No it can't. We're fucked. Corbyn will never, ever be Prime Minister. But we'll just have to go out on the doorsteps and make the most of a terrible situation, because what else is there to do but keep fighting?
posted by howfar at 3:21 PM on September 25, 2016


I don't think we're fucked at all. Over 15,000 new people joined after Saturday's result and we are the largest socialist party in Europe. Ordinary people pack out halls up and down the country to hear Corbyn. McDonnell mentioned aiming for a million members in a year. If we can just get the worst of the PLP to simply shut up (Danczuk, Phillips), Corbyn policies go down well with the public and his relaxed style often does too (unlike the humourless zombie in charge of the Tories). All these polls change in the blink of an eye, just like everything else.
posted by Coda Tronca at 11:45 PM on September 25, 2016


I very much hope you're right. From a practical perspective it doesn't make that much difference, in that what needs doing remains the same. Fingers crossed!
posted by howfar at 3:08 AM on September 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


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