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European Union: parliament hosts BAT stunt

d.simpson@iath.org

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Just how badly does a company have to behave to be denied special access to politicians elected to safeguard their voters’ health and other interests? Despite a long record of doing its utmost to prevent effective tobacco control policies in Europe, British American Tobacco (BAT) has been allowed to hold a lobbying event on its "corporate social responsibility" (CSR) programme in the European Parliament. Using the tired old rhetoric that politicians and parliamentary officials should have learned to decode long ago, BAT billed the event, held in January, as a "stakeholder dialogue" and part of its 2006 social reporting process.

To try to make politicians and others think that everyone, like it or not, is a "stakeholder" in its wretched business, is one of its most invidious tricks. Politicians worth their salt, not to mention salaries, can surely see through such corporate sophistry? Moreover, they cannot have failed to hear . . . [Full text of this article]

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