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LEADERS of the top 100 transnational corporations in the world gathered in Berlin this weekend (Oct 30) to meet with officials from the European Union and Washington to decide its policies.
The group, known as Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TABD), then discussed how best to impose them on nation states.
US Under Secretary of Commerce Stewart Hauser puts it simply to help us all understand how corporate dictatorship manifests itself in "modern" society.
"The idea was simple: to identify those barriers to trade or opportunities for liberalization on which both business communities could agree as targets for government action. We should put the business 'horse' before the government 'cart'," he said.
There you are - democracy is getting in the way of big business.
The Corporate Europe Observatory watchdog have warned that the primary aim of the TABD is to "steer EU-US leadership in international trade negotiations such as within the World Trade Organisation."
The annual TABD conferences present transatlantic industry recommendations, in the words of the TABD, "to governments for implementation."
It also expects "implementation of all deliverables and expect satisfactory and positive answers from administrations. "
The Berlin gathering was indeed designed to stitch up the WTO Ministerial Conference being held next month in Seattle, where controversial issues surrounding a possible new round of trade and investment liberalisation will be pushed.
Those familar with EU methods of bypassing and destroying democracy will recognise the routine.
EU corporations will be represented, not surprisingly, by the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT) who wield huge lobbying powers at the commission.
The ERT are the representatives of the largest European corporation's which singlehandedly drew up the agenda for Maastricht Treaty.
ERT secretary-general Keith Richardson boasted at the time that one of their members, Wisse Dekker representing Phillips, "pushed" through the austere economics of the euro and the single market "bearing in mind that when it was first launched governments were not very keen."
TABD's Global Issues Manager Reinhard Quick explains that the ERT and the European bosses confederation UNICE "work together, we consult with each other. "
"The ERT is part of the TABD network. Many of the CEO's in the TABD chair ERT committees. UNICE represents EU industry and so we see what the EU industry wants through the work of UNICE."
In the US a similar coordination takes place, particularly by the European American Business Council (EABC) - an active player which uses the US TABD process as a channel for promoting its political goals.
Anybody interested in who rules them in today's post-democratic capitalist New World Order should find out the names of company executive officers who sit on the ERT, EABC or, more importantly the TABC and they may well find the answer.