Voting opens for the Worst Lobby Awards

Secretive corporate lobbying efforts are being dragged into the open today at the launch of the Worst EU Lobbying Awards 2010 in Brussels. Some of WDM's old and new foes have been nominated for their part in lobbying in Europe to stop progressive change.

In the climate category, supported by: Climate Action Network Europe, Oxfam, World Development Movement. The nominees are:

- BusinessEurope: Nominated for its aggressive lobbying to block effective climate action in the EU while claiming to support action to protect the climate.
- ArcelorMittal: Steel industry fat cat, nominated for lobbying on CO2 cuts under the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and profiting from free ETS emission permits.
- RWE: Nominated for claiming to be green while lobbying to keep its dirty coal-and oil-fired power plants open.

In the finance category, supported by: ATTAC Network, World Development Movement.
- Royal Bank of Scotland: Nominated for secretly lobbying in Brussels and for exploiting insider contacts by headhunting former EU Commissioner Günter Verheugen as an advisor
- Goldman Sachs and derivatives lobby group ISDA: Nominated for aggressive lobbying to defend their ‘financial weapons of mass destruction’
- Hedge fund and private equity lobby groups AIMA and EVCA: Nominated for deceptive lobbying to block regulation of damaging speculation in the financial sector

From today, you can vote online here for the most deserving ‘winner’ in this year’s two categories – climate and finance. Online voting will run until 25 November 2010.