EU Watchdog Radio

Welcome to a new summer episode of EU Watchdog Radio. In this episode we will very exceptionally…talk about ourselves, about CEO as a lobby watchdog and dive into how it all started 25 years ago.This year CEO celebrates it’s 25th anniversary albeit in a rather modest way, since at the start of this year the pandemic was still raging, and soon after a war started on the European continent with a subsequent energy- and food crisis. Not exactly a very festive momentum.But while discussing the hi...

In this episode of EU Watchdog Radio, we talk with Olivier Hoedeman, campaigner and researcher at CEO, and Bruno Maia, a doctor and activist.We discuss with Olivier how the EU approached the negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies, what we can get from the documents CEO requested access to, and what was the TRIPS waiver agreed with the World Trade Organisation.Bruno, on the other hand, addressed some of the concepts around vaccines. What are patents and do all vaccines have them? Are t...

In the latest episode of EU Watchdog Radio, we discuss how EU public finance institutions like the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) should approach the rebuilding of Ukraine after the war comes to an end.Russia’s hostile invasion of Ukraine sent shockwaves across Europe and beyond. The war has forced over 6.8 million people to flee the country, with millions more internally displaced.The damage done to Ukraine’s infrastructure has been colossal. Speaking at the World Ec...

In this new episode of EU Watchdog Radio we discuss some fascinating historical events that helps to understand why the European Union is functions the way it does, and why we have not made enough progress to tackle climate change, despite al the scientific knowledge we have accumulated since at least 1972. This episode is published on the 9th of May for a reason: this is Europe Day and thus we publish the first of several episodes to celebrate the 25th anniversary of CEO. As the Europe...

In this episode of EU Watchdog Radio, we talk about the EU’s dependency on gas, what energy poverty is and in what way it is linked to the Ukraine war. We also discuss the energy alternatives the EU is considering, and what really needs to happen.Europe is facing a crisis of the cost of living and the invasion of Ukraine has exposed its dependency on Russian oil and gas. As the EU continues to import them, it is directly funding Putin’s war. According to Beyond Coal, in March alon...

In the latest episode of EU Watchdog Radio, we discuss the linkages between the Ukraine war , the food crisis and subsequent ‘the policy fall-out’. Agrobusiness lobbies and their political allies abuse the crisis to derail and delay the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy.A toxic lobby amplified by conservative politicians was very quick to start, calling for increased food production due to the Ukraine war. And thus they called for the need of more fertilisers and pesticides as they wrongfully ...

In the latest episode of EU Watchdog Radio, we discuss the European Guarantee Fund (EGF), a secretive €25 billion fund created by the European Investment Bank (EIB), ostensibly to help European businesses in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.The fund aims to use the €25 billion invested by the EIB to inject €200 billion into the European economy. Yet while this may sound good in principle, systemic problems abound with the EGF.Firstly, the EGF itself is so mired in secrecy that it is di...

In this new episode of EU Watchdog Radio we discuss France, French politics, the role that French President Emmanuel Macron wants to play in the EU and what vision he has for the future of Europe. Disclaimer: the French Presidency of the EU Council which started on 1 January promises a very corporate-driven future of Europe! An EU Presidency prepared in close collaboration with the French corporate sector which is setting a policy agenda that strongly reflects business demands. That was ...

In this new episode we’ll talk to two experts - Dimitri Eynikel, an expert of Doctors without Borders and CEO-researcher Olivier Hoedeman- on how the EU is dealing with the new phase of the pandemic, with a special focus on the still unresolved unequal access of large parts of the world to Covid-19 vaccines, new medicines and therapeutics. Experts have long warned that if the global population does not have access to vaccines, new variants of the virus will emerge and hit us back....

In this new episode of EU Watchdog Radio we take the temperature of the international Climate conference COP26, that started this week in Glasgow. Activist Greta Thunberg is right by saying and sometime shouting the word ‘Greenwashing’ all over Glasgow. While COP26 in Glasgow was branded by the UK government as the COP where the world should take historic decisions, it seems the UK government has been putting up a gigantic greenwashing PR -show. Government and climate policy by announce...