Exclusive: EU Parliament at odds with Amazon over hearing with boss
Amazon and the European Parliament are at odds over whether a boss from the US tech giant should appear before a parliamentary committee later this month, sources familiar with the matter told Euronews.
The Parliament has made the 26 June hearing at the Employment and Social Affairs Committee (EMPL) a precondition for Amazon regaining access to its premises, after the tech giant's access badges were withdrawn in February last year because the company failed to attend a series of hearings and factory visits in 2021 and 2023 related to workers' rights.
The committee has asked London-based Senior Vice President Russell Grandinetti to appear before it. Grandinetti joined the company in 1998 and is now responsible for leading Amazon's international e-commerce business across Europe, UK, Japan, India, China, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, the Middle East and Australia.
In an email exchange seen by Euronews, Amazon responded saying that two other senior officials – Luxembourg-based Stefano Perego, vice president of international operations and global operations services, and Lucy Cronin, a Dublin-based vice president for EU public policy – would be better placed to answer the committee's questions on working conditions.
But the committee is resisting those speakers, claiming they don't meet the required level of seniority, and is refusing to accept them.
The email did not specify whether the hearing would be cancelled. Euronews understands that the hearing will still go ahead.
Other speakers that were scheduled to attend the EMPL hearing were representatives from unions as well as Amazon workers.
During a UK parliamentary hearing on the Employment Rights Bill last December, Amazon representatives that attended were directors, a level below Perego and Cronin in terms of seniority.
During its previous five-year mandate, the EMPL committee twice invited Amazon to discuss working conditions in its EU facilities. But in May 2021 and January 2024, the company declined the invitations. Planned visits to facilities in Poland and Germany scheduled for December 2023 also never took place.
Last November the Parliament said Amazon must attend a hearing and arrange for MEPs to visit one of its fulfilment centres before it would consider lifting the restrictions.
Lawmaker Laila Chaibi (France, GUE/NGL) said in a reaction to Euronews that: "Workers are deprived of their rights, they are watched continuously, pressured by their leadership constantly. [...] And once again, when elected representatives ask for a visit, we are blocked, it's easier to visit a prison facility than an Amazon warehouse."
Oliver Roethig, Regional Secretary at trade union UNI Europa, echoed this comments and said that decisions about Amazon workers' conditions "are not made in Luxembourg."
"They are made at the highest echelons of Amazon's management structure: the S-Team. We demand that Amazon make available S-Team members to be held accountable by the Committee," Roethig added.
Amazon said in a previous statement that it treats its responsibilities to the Parliament and other institutions 'seriously', and that it agrees 'that a company such as ours—with over 150,000 employees in the EU alone—should be scrutinised.'
'We also believe that it's important to scrutinise the whole industry in addition to individual companies, and to have sessions that are designed to understand facts, not just make political points,' the statement said.
Amazon and the European Parliament were contacted for a comment.
The pending ban on the popular social media app TikTok will likely be extended on Thursday.
US President Donald Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he would 'probably' extend the TikTok ban for a third time but he would need approval from China's President Xi Jinping to do so.
The Supreme Court upheld a decision in January that forces ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, to either sell the app to an American buyer or face a nationwide ban. June 19th was the new date that the ban was supposed to take effect.
Euronews Next takes a look at what could be next for the app and evaluates whether the extension is a sign that the national security concerns around TikTok have changed AND if it is a geopolitical move by Trump
It's not a surprise that Trump is likely to extend the TikTok ban because he believes it's being used in further negotiations with China, said Darío García de Viedma, fellow of technical and digital policy at the think tank the Elcano Royal Institute in Spain.
'I don't see a scenario in which both [Xi and Trump's] interests are met with a purchase or a ban,' García de Viedma told Euronews Next. 'It would have to be part of a broader negotiation, where one concedes TikTok and the other concedes something else, like tariffs or export control'.
Last week, Trump claimed the US and China agreed to a new trade relationship where the US would receive magnets and rare earth minerals in exchange for allowing Chinese students to enrol in American colleges and universities.
The deal also brought their respective tariffs down to 55 per cent imposed by the US on Chinese products and 10 per cent imposed by China on American products.
Despite their relationship appearing to have calmed, it still isn't the right time to force a TikTok sale, said García de Viedma.
It also wouldn't be the first time that a TikTok ban is be used to gain political leverage over China, he added.
Indian President Narendra Modi banned TikTok along with 58 Chinese apps in 2020 after border skirmishes with China. The app was gone overnight but accounts and old videos are still online, the BBC reported.
García de Viedma said Indian policy experts he has spoken to, the move is 'populist' to show that '[Modi] is taking care of the conflict with China and that this is a very big move towards Indian sovereignty'.
'President Trump is doing the opposite,' García de Viedma said.. 'His discourse right now is, I'm going to save TikTok. [Trump] is saying the opposite to Modi, but it's actually the same trend, using it as a sovereignty discourse.'
Jan Penfrat, senior policy advisor with European Digital Rights, said he wouldn't be surprised if a movement to ban all Chinese apps like Modi comes up later.
'I wouldn't be surprised if later in the administration, [there is] an idea to basically just say 'hey let's just ban all Chinese things that are kind of in competition with [what] America offers,' Penfrat said.
The main argument from the Republican Party that passed the bill to divest TikTok is that ByteDance could be compelled to send US data to the Chinese government if they requested it.
This is largely a 'theoretical concern' because there are opposing views from officials about whether there have been TikTok data transfers to the Chinese government, García de Viedma said.
But data privacy concerns haven't resonated with TikTok creators, who have stayed on the platform despite conflicting stories from officials, he added.
The US also has a similar data transfer law to China called the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act (CLOUD). Passed during Trump's first mandate, the US government can subpoena American technology companies for data stored on any server in the world to help them investigate serious crimes.
Penfrat and García de Viedma argue that TikTok has just as many security risks as other social media apps due to how they share and store data.
'All of these social media apps are a security risk if you work in a sensitive area because they all do massive data collection through the device that they're installed on,' Penfrat said.
'And this has nothing to do with the fact that TikTok comes from China and everything to do with the business model that the company has'.
This business model involves collecting personal data and selling it to advertisers to feed it into recommender systems, Penfrat said, referring to algorithms.
If a US or Chinese government body wants data, they don't have to compel the social media companies to hand it over - they can just participate in real-time bidding for personal data on the targeted advertising market and bypass the social media companies entirely, he added.
'It's an incredibly messy industry which leads to hundreds of parties eventually having access to personal data and it's totally out of control in a way,' Penfrat said.
'Eventually, government agencies like ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)in the US have started buying personal data on the commercial market because they can get all the information they want without needing a warrant'.
It's also not clear if and when the sale goes through, whether ByteDance would be forced to sell the TikTok algorithm or just its US-based operations, according to García de Viedma.
If the US only buys the operations and not the algorithms, it could change what content is seen or recommended for users in Europe, said García de Viedma. This could then lead to the possible 'implosion' of the so-called 'TikTok economy' that is moving money mostly from the United States.
'In a matter of days, the big TikTok community could move to another platform and this would have a big impact on all the intellectual movements and culture and politics that is created on TikTok,' he said.
But that could be what Trump wants by creating this uncertainty about the ban, García de Viedma said, by forcing creators to move to other platforms like Instagram to keep their income streams alive.
By doing this, Trump could be using a 'midterm strategy to just kill TikTok from its user base and to reduce its impact and the price,' he said.
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