BEUC President: industry has gained more influence[fr][de] 

"I think that with the Prodi Commission, industry gained much more influence in the Commission (...) we started to see industry become much more present in the SANCO context (...) the lobbyists very efficiently integrated everywhere," BEUC President Rasmus Kjeldahl told EurActiv. "And I think if you analyse the new Commission you will see that industry has made another step forward in the choice of portfolios and commissioners," added Mr Kjeldahl.

In his view, consumer policy has also moved higher up the agenda, replacing environment as the issue closest to the citizens. "Both the Parliament and the Commission find that they need subjects which bring them closer to people and I think that consumer issues are such subjects (...) I think the environmental issues for many years were that issue. This is less strong today, environment is less on the agenda than it used to be," Mr Kjeldahl explained. And there are also key personalities that support progress on consumer policy, such as Robert Madelin, Director General of DG SANCO who, in Mr Kjeldahl's words, "is taking a keen interest in the dossier".

Integration of consumer issues into other policy areas, such as the internal market, will be one of newly elected BEUC President's priorities for his two-year term. Building strong consumer organisations in the new member states is another important objective for Mr Kjeldahl to maintain BEUC's strong lobbying position in Brussels as the top consumer organisation.

EurActiv asked BEUC's President about food safety in the enlarged EU and whether he thought pre-enlargement concerns were well-founded. "We, as a consumer organisation, do not have any evidence that safety has not been handled properly," he said. In his capacity as President of the Danish Consumers' Council, Mr Kjeldahl said imports from the new member states have increased, which he expects to bring down prices.

The BEUC President said that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become important although there is still a lack of verification. "My general feeling about CSR is that it has become extremely important and we are at a stage now that serious companies are aware of it. And some companies even do something about it (...) but actually the system is based a lot on you trusting these companies to do it and there is very little investigation into whether the claims are right," he said, explaining that BEUC is dealing with the verification issue, which is in the common interest of consumers and business.

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