Amazon lobbyists to be barred from European parliament

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Lobbyists from Amazon are 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 as Microsoft are 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.

Via FT