[mytailorisrich]

As an EU citizen, it does not sit well with my idea of a free democratic society to ban an interest group from making representation just because they refuse to subject themselves to what are little more than "show trials" conducted for politicians' own benefits.

The EU's institutions are on a wrong path, IMHO.

[smilingsun]

It's only the second time in history that a lobbying entity is banned. Second time since Monsanto in 2017. That's not a "path". Source: the first paragraph of the article.

This has nothing to do with "show trials". If you hold 14 lobbying badges and do not respect the European Parliament's Employment Committee's repeated requests to discuss important matters of employment in the European Union, then Amazon is really showing contempt for the lawmakers and the European institutions.

It's very understandable why they are talking about a "red line" here: If a company of the size and importance of Amazon refuses to sit down with lawmakers and discuss problems caused by their commercial activities on a European-wide scale, then they're not showing the kind of social and political responsibility that's fair to require from a corporation with direct access to European lawmakers.

The decisive body seems to agree:

> all quaestors were in favour of authorising the secretary general to withdraw their long-term access badges

There's more detail here:

https://www.politico.eu/article/amazon-lobbyists-face-ban-fr... https://euobserver.com/digital/158150

[piva00]

They wouldn't have been banned if they were present when required, right? What should be the rules then, they can pick and choose when they are present because it's convenient to them or should they be around when it's also not in their interests but in the interest of the EU?

Almost every political action is for politicians' benefit, that's the whole incentive, it's unfortunate because I'd prefer a world where politicians just do the right thing but we can't have a political system that depends on the morality of everyone involved to do the right thing.

[mytailorisrich]

Reading between the lines, there is likely no legal obligation for Amazon to attend those hearings, which again sound like Soviet show trials against them for purely political and ideological reasons.

Again, if Amazon has been breaking the law in their warehouses that's the job of the courts and employment tribunals.

The EU Parliament has been going from bad to worse over the years, it's now just ideology and populism. Instead of using Amazon as punching ball they should rather ponder why the EU economy and EU companies are falling behind...

[piva00]

> Instead of using Amazon as punching ball they should rather ponder why the EU economy and EU companies are falling behind...

Probably because it's not a free-for-all on who makes more money with no accountability to 2nd and 3rd order effects on society. If we care about citizens' wellbeing before profits there are many things that become less profitable and/or competitive than in places with less safeguards against corporations damages.

[mytailorisrich]

> If we care about citizens' wellbeing before profits

That's a meaningless slogan and not mutually exclusive.

Ultimately without profits and a productive economy the citizens' wellbeing will become unaffordable and take a nosedive. This is already happening throughout Europe.

[piva00]

It's not a meaningless slogan, it means to consider the balance between economic growth vs potential damage caused by growth as a goal.

Consider the case for food, you can remove regulations and let it be a free for all race to the bottom to who can produce the most food for the cheapest price without a care about the environment, food safety or how sustainable it will be; or you can try to regulate known externalities that will cause an increase in costs, prices but will reduce damages to society as a whole.

Or the case for heavy industry, you can deregulate everything and not care about worker safety, environmental impact, and allow factories to be placed near water reservoirs with no water treatment; or you try to zone out factories to places with less impact to populated areas, require them to treat waste, impose restrictions on how they should gas out potential harmful by-products (CO2, sulfides, etc.).

The whole point is to strike a balance between economic growth and not allowing this growth to be detrimental to society in the long-term, it's a pretty damn complex task and a whole apparatus exist around it exactly because it's not simple.

If this is meaningless to you then I'm sorry but we have very different worldviews to how economic growth should be attained; I'd much rather have societies thinking about this rather than purely pushing economic growth at all costs, damned be the ones suffering from its side-effects.

> Ultimately without profits and a productive economy the citizens' wellbeing will become unaffordable and take a nosedive. This is already happening throughout Europe.

I don't believe it's happening throughout Europe, it's still one of the richest places on the entire Earth, it might be lagging behind the USA's and China's growth but both of these societies suffer much more the side-effects of their growth (and push those onto humanity as a whole when considering emissions of greenhouse gasses).

[manuel_w]

> Reading between the lines, there is likely no legal obligation for Amazon to attend those hearings

Is there a legal obligation for Amazon to have access to the European parliament?

When Amazon is ignoring the Parliament when they seek to talk to them, it just seems fair that the Parliament is ignoring Amazon when they want to talk.

Checks and balances.