EU - Amazon Lobbyists Banned
Amazon lobbyists are to be banned from the European Parliament until further notice, after an internal body unanimously decided to withdraw their badges, EUobserver has learned.
The ban follows a call by the parliament’s employment committee earlier, when MEPs decided to take action against the US firm for failing to cooperate with them on various occasions since 2021.
“The European parliament has drawn a clear red line: Amazon’s anti-democratic behavior won’t be tolerated,” said Olivier Roethig, regional secretary at UNI Europa, a union representing seven million service workers.
This is not the first time that MEPs have used the parliament’s rules of procedure to ask for a badge to be deactivated or withdrawn for refusing, without sufficient justification, “to comply with a formal summons to attend a hearing or a committee meeting or to cooperate with a committee of inquiry,” according to Rule 123.
In 2017, Monsanto lobbyists were barred from entering the institution after the US pesticide company declined a request from the agriculture and environment committees to attend a hearing on the glyphosate weedkiller.
-euobserver.com, 27 February 2024
Arno's Commentary
According to outvio.com, of the five largest online retailers, Amazon.com is in first place, and the next four places are Chinese: Jingon, Alibaba, Suning, and Meituan. Various other sources have somewhat different rankings, but Amazon is number one.
We can identify the problem with two words: “worker’s rights.” Europe has the world’s strictest rules when it comes to employees and labor practices. That apparently was the reason why the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, had to close its business in Germany. Required paid holidays in Europe, by country, vary from 20 to 48 days per year; in the USA, it’s zero.
Europe’s online retail market is growing; presently, more than 24% of Amazon’s income is earned in the EU.
Often repeated in this column is the statement, “Merchandise is king.” Why? Because Bible prophecy predicts that when Armageddon—the day of global collapse—comes, Revelation 18:15 will be fulfilled: “The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing.”
Arno Froese is the executive director of Midnight Call Ministries and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed prophetic magazines Midnight Call and News From Israel. He has authored a number of well-received books, and has sponsored many prophecy conferences in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. His extensive travels have contributed to his keen insight into Bible prophecy, as he sees it from an international perspective.
