Amazon lobbyists to be barred from European parliament
Amazon in the regulatory spotlight once again
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Lobbyists fromAmazonare to banned from the European parliament after a number of MEPs called for action to be taken.
The MEPs stated that Amazon is not cooperating with the parliament on issues surrounding working conditions and the rights of its employees.
This comes at a time when Amazon and other tech giants such asMicrosoftare receiving additional scrutiny by the EU on their business practices.
€18.8 million spent on lobbying since 2013
Amazon has faced increasing criticism on the working conditions in its European sites and its less than friendly approach to unionionization. Since 2021, the ecommerce giant has failed to attend three meetings with the employment and social affairs committee, with the most recent meeting being missed due to “short notice”, according to a letter from the committee to Robert Metsola, the EU parliament president.
“It is unreasonable for members to be lobbied by Amazon while at the same time being deprived of the right to represent the interests of European citizens and inquire about claims of breaches of fundamental rights enshrined in EU Treaties and EU labour laws,” the letter stated.
In response to the decision, Amazon said, “We are very disappointed with this decision, as we want to engage constructively with policymakers. As a company that has been active in the EU for more than 25 years and now has more than 150,000 permanent employees here, we take our engagement with policymakers in Brussels and across Europe extremely seriously.”
Since 2013, around €18.8 million has been spent by Amazon on lobbying campaigns in EU institutions, according to non-profit research group, the Corporate Europe Observatory. “Amazon’s anti-democratic behaviour won’t be tolerated,” said Oliver Roethig, regional secretary of European trade union group UNI Europa in response to the ban.
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Benedict has been writing about security issues for over 7 years, first focusing on geopolitics and international relations while at the University of Buckingham. During this time he studied BA Politics with Journalism, for which he received a second-class honours (upper division), then continuing his studies at a postgraduate level, achieving a distinction in MA Security, Intelligence and Diplomacy. Upon joining TechRadar Pro as a Staff Writer, Benedict transitioned his focus towards cybersecurity, exploring state-sponsored threat actors, malware, social engineering, and national security. Benedict is also an expert on B2B security products, including firewalls, antivirus, endpoint security, and password management.
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