EU Watchdog Radio

In this new episode we dive into the incredible story on how Fortress Europe is being constructed by a European agency called the ‘European Border and Coast Guard Agency’ AKA Frontex, almost in the dark and without any democratic oversight. With billions of EU taxpayer’s money and the help of dozens of lobbyists from defense, arms and surveillance technology industries, Frontex is creating a world that George Orwell would have found inspiring when writing his book ‘1984’.In the first weekend ...

Pandemic, austerity, privatisation and the urgency of an honest debate on health care policy.In this first new episode of 2021, we dive into the topic that is unfortunately still on everyone's mind each and every day: the raging pandemic. Our main focus is why were /are health care systems in many countries under such pressure when dealing with Covid-19? From hospitals to care homes, the outsourcing and privatisation of healthcare , in combination with various EU austerity policies, hav...

Listen to CEO-researcher Belen Balanya who published a report on the 'Hydrogen Hype' and why this trojan horse of the gas industry is not a climate solution, making the EU Green Deal a grey deal.

‘Black rocking the European Green Deal’ is the title of this fourteenth episode, in which CEO researcher Kenneth Haar and Jana Leutner researcher at Change Finance, discuss the Blackrock scandal. Together they published a report called “The BlackRock Model”, in which they uncover the scale of the blunder of the European Commission by granting a contract to BlackRock to give advice on ‘sustainable finance’. On the 25th of November it became crystal clear that the EuropeanCommission ignor...

In this new EU Watchdog Radio episode, Xavier Sol, director at Counter Balance discusses the role of the European Investment Bank (EIB) outside of Europe and the bank’s intention to become the ‘EU Development Bank’.A new report published by Counter Balance and CEE Bankwatch Network however shows that the Bank is not yet fit for the task. The report titled 'Can the EIB become the 'EU Development Bank?', exposes the EIB’s poor track record on human rights, superficial due diligence and m...

In this new EU Watchdog episode CEO-researcher Nina Holland explains why and how it is possible that the European Parliament and ministers of Agriculture decided this week - under influence of the powerful agrochemical lobby to go for the destructive status quo on European agriculture.Nina Holland, researcher at CEO, main author of a very recent CEO-report on the Agrochemical lobby explains how a ‘unholy alliance’ of the big farm and agribusiness lobby group Copa-Cogeca, together with pestici...

In this new episode, after a long summer break we dive into the topic that is unfortunately still on everyone's mind each and every day: the raging pandemic. Our main question: when will there be a vaccine? The second question: who controls the development of those vaccines? And who protects the general interest or public health against the problematic,profit-maximising business-models rampant in Big Pharma? Three experts (Olivier Hoedeman, Yannis Natsis and Ellen ‘t Hoen) provide the an...

In this tenth episode, German investigative reporter Harald Schumann describes how and why many EU member states seem to still have a crush on fossil fuels. Despite the overwhelming knowledge and practical evidence of the effects of climate change, governments keep subsidizing the use of fossil fuels. Schumann and his colleagues from the pan-European journalistic platform Investigate Europe just published a series of articles that exposes this ridiculous and counter-productive policy of Europ...

In this ninth episode, Belén Balanyá and Lala Hakuma Dadci both researcher and campaigner at Corporate Europe Observatory, take a step back and have a critical look at what is currently happening with the EU flagship project the EU Green Deal (EGD).The EGD could be one of the most important and hopeful EU policy initiatives. It is testimony to civil society and citizens movement's impact. Excluding public investment funds to fossil fuel industries is key to foster a sustainable and just trans...

In this eighth episode, Clara Bourgin, research and policy assistant at Counter Balance digs into the recent commitments taken by the Europe Investment Bank (EIB) – the lending arm of the European Union - to become the “EU Climate Bank”.Back in November 2019, the EIB took the groundbreaking decision to phase out its support to fossil fuels and to align all its operations with the objectives of the Paris Agreement by the end of 2020. As a result, expectations around the EIB are high. Stil...