182 out of 184: This is what corporate capture looks like

EU Watchdog Radio

Corporate Europe Observatory and Counter Balance

News, Politics

3.0 • 2 Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2026

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We need to talk about what deregulation actually means in Brussels right now.

It means one commissioner holding 184 meetings with external actors, 182 of them with business groups. It means indigenous Sami reindeer herders in Sweden losing their last migration route to a fast-tracked mine. It means the public funding the polluters' infrastructure while they keep the profits.

In this episode of EU Watchdog Radio, Joana from Corporate Europe Observatory talks to colleagues Kenneth Haar and Rachel Tansey about their two new reports exposing the corporate machinery behind the EU's deregulation agenda — and the communities already bearing the costs.

This is not simplification. This is corporate capture.

Check out the reports:

- This is what corporate capture looks like!

- Permission to pollute

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Transcript

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0:00.0	People we see in the shadows, if you look just a little bit under the surface, is covered lobby groups.
0:06.6	These changes have come about through unprecedented levels of privilege, access for corporations.
0:25.2	You're listening to EU Watchdog Radio.
0:27.3	Hi, welcome.
0:31.4	I'm Joanna Lassen, Combs Officer at Corporate Europe Observatory.
0:35.7	EU Watchdog Radio is the podcast we host with Counterbalance.
0:39.3	And today I will talk to my colleagues Kenneth Harre and Rachel Tanzi, about two reports we published and which focus on different aspects of how
0:46.4	close we are to losing hard-won victories in social, environmental, health and digital rights.
0:54.1	We are at a tipping point. Under the guise of
0:57.6	simplification, the European Commission has started an unprecedented deregulation frenzy of
1:03.3	rules that will impact all of us, wherever we live, whatever we work on. At CEO, we have been involved in a white coalition
1:12.8	against it and have been doing what we do best, researching and exposing what is happening
1:18.8	behind the scenes. So in this episode, Kenneth will talk about his recent report. This is what
1:25.9	corporate capture looks like, how corporations run the
1:29.1	EU deregulation agenda. And Rachel will discuss permission to pollute. EU rips up permitting
1:35.4	rules and funds dirty infrastructure. Let's go. Thank you very much, Kenneth. Can you let me know why you decided to write the report?
1:47.0	This is what corporate capture looks like.
1:50.0	And why did you decide to call it like that?
1:52.0	Sure.
1:53.0	Well, at the moment, Brussels politics is about deregulation.
1:57.0	So we see an immense effort by the institutions through roll back EU laws
2:02.6	adopted to protect the public interest.
	...

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