Question time

If you read about my experience in Brussels last month (HERE and HERE) you may be interested to know that Forest has now submitted a formal complaint about events on March 19.

I won't reproduce the full three-page letter (although it's not every day that I find myself writing to the Secretary-General of the European Commission), but it includes the following questions:

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  • Is it normal or acceptable for a stakeholder who has received a written invitation to a consultation meeting to be asked to leave that meeting by other stakeholders?
  • Is it normal or acceptable for stakeholders with a clear vested interest to dictate who can take part in a consultation meeting?
  • Why were the representatives of four pharmaceutical companies present at a meeting described as a “consultation meeting with EU experts, civil society and social partners”?
  • Do written minutes of the meeting exist and are they available to the public?
  • Is there a formal list of stakeholders at the meeting and is it available to the public?
  • If the answers [to the two previous questions] are “No”, why are stakeholders allowed to attend consultation meetings – and make verbal contributions – anonymously?

If and when we get a reply I'll let you know.

In a separate letter to the EU's Health and Consumer Protection Unit, I have written:

Forest is keen to play an active role in the consultation process and I would welcome the opportunity to attend future meetings in Brussels. However, having read the background document and considered the impact assessment procedure, I am concerned that the outcome of the consultation is a foregone conclusion.

Well, that's the diplomatic way of putting it. Watch this space.

Comments

[Margot Johnson]

Oh, Simon Clark, you are the Hero of the Month. We WILL watch this space!

[Mark McCubbin]

Well done Simon, I admire your tenacity.

[chas]

Keep on trying, Simon.

[ann]

Lack of consultation with anyone who doesent agree with their policies seems to be the way the eu and their lackey govts invoke their policies, while at the same time using massive spin telling us how everyone is in agreement with them, democracy is in grave danger in europe at present and particularly in england and if the lisbon treaty is passed we will all be in the same boat, tho already there's been a report of a deal between dublin and brussels to secure a yes vote. Ireland has been used as a guinea pig for a rash of bans - smoking, litter, plastic bags, light bulbs and gas heaters on the way and just yesterday a draconian drink law - and their "successful" application is being used as a spur for other countries to follow suit,then ireland gets a slap on the back, or for all we know a backhander, from its eu paymasters . On a survey on irish health.ie 32% of people want the smoking ban revoked. but if the question had been for a modification I'm sure common sense would have shown a massive majority for doing so.
If govts keep setting up unelected, unaccountable ngo's like Ash etc using public money giving them intorable power that nobody knows who their members are or who appoints them or on what basis, then why cant the public get to vote for these unaccountable members and sack the army of civil servants who are now redundant.
Brussels want Forrest and anyone who doesent agree with their dictat to just give up and fade away by making it more difficult for them at every step of the way, thats their modus operandi so people like Simon should hang in there and keep chipping away as from a little seed an oak tree grows.