Brussels, 01/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - The organisation Finance Watch was officially launched on Thursday 30 June, with its mission to amplify the voices of the citizens to counter-balance the financial lobby. Finance Watch will “put an end to the monopoly of the financial industry in lobbying on financial regulation. This monopoly has posed a major threat to the democratic process”, said French Green Pascal Canfin, one of the MEPs behind the initiative, in a press release. He goes on to state that Finance Watch will have three objectives: “to develop independent expertise, to become a general-interest lobby to counter the specific interests of the banks and to communicate with the general public to feed into the public debate and allow the citizens to take ownership of the subjects”.
His Belgian colleague Philippe Lamberts welcomes the fact that “300 NGOs, trade unions, consumer organisations and investors” have signed up as founding members of the organisation, which will also be supported by some 20 experts from university circles and even the financial world. German philosopher Jurgen Harbermas has also agreed to support Finance Watch. The former co-rapporteur of the European Parliament in 2008 on the future of the financial supervision architecture, the Dutch Socialist Ieke van den Burg, has been appointed president of the fledgling organisation and the French MEP Thierry Philipponnat, a former banker and member of Amnesty International France, will be its secretary-general. The board administration of Finance Watch will be made up of the European Consumers' Bureau (BEUC), the European Federation of savers (EuroInvestors), the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the European Trade Union Confederation for Services and Communication (UNI Europa), Friends of the Earth and Transparency International.
According to the secretary general of BEUC, Monique Goyens, Finance Watch will be the “missing piece” of the jigsaw puzzle, putting financial services at the service of society, with financial rules “too often” serving the interests of the financial industry. “Mortgage interest rates linked to foreign currencies or investment products, which even the bank staff do not understand, cannot constitute the kind of services consumers need”, the organisation states in a press release. For more information, see: http://www.financewatch.org (M.B./transl.fl)