And the Winner is... PDF Print E-mail
2 December, 2010

German energy giant RWE (npower), and embattled bank Goldman Sachs (coupled with dodgy derivatives lobby group ISDA) have been given the dubious honour of being named the Worst EU Lobbyists of 2010.


The results of the dual climate and finance categories of the Worst EU Lobbying Awards 2010 were revealed during a ceremony outside the ISDA office in Brussels this morning.

RWE was the clear winner of the climate category, winning 58 per cent of the vote. It had been nominated for claiming to be green while lobbying to keep its dirty coal- and oil-fired power plants open.

Brussels based lobby group, BusinessEurope, nominated for its aggressive lobbying to block effective climate action in the EU while claiming to support action to protect the climate, took second place with 24% of the total votes and Arcelor-Mittal, the steel Industry “fat cat”, came in third with 18% of the total votes.

In the finance category, the global investment bank Goldman Sachs and derivatives lobby group ISDA (the influential people you have never heard of), nominated for aggressive lobbying to defend their ‘financial weapons of mass destruction’, took first place with 59% of the total vote.

Royal Bank of Scotland (23%) took second, nominated for secretly lobbying in Brussels and for exploiting insider contacts. Hedge funds and private equity lobby groups AIMA and EVCA (18%) took third, nominated for deceptive lobbying to block regulation of damaging speculation in the financial sector.

In all around 10,000 citizens from across Europe participated in an online public vote for the most deserving of the climate and finance nominees.

Voters sent a clear message to EU transparency and ethics Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič that a major clean-up of the Brussels lobbying scene is urgently needed, and it’s time the European Commission put public interest above the commercial interests of large companies.

Nina Katzemich, speaking for the organisers of the 2010 Worst EU Lobbying Awards, said: "These awards show that people around Europe are fed up with deceptive lobbying practices used by big business when it comes to climate regulation ...  If the European Commission is serious about tackling climate change, it must stop listening one-sidedly to corporations. It can make a new start – now, in Cancun.”

For more information go here.
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