According to Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO), Examiners of the European Patent Office have recently invaded one of the secret meetings of the Administrative Council with chocolate coins, pointing to the conflict of interests between the National Patent Offices (NPOs) and their appetite of "more patents, more money":

The EPO staff are trying to make their voice heard by a series of actions against the undermining of the European Patent Organisation by its own governing body (see below).
On October 22nd, some 500 staff took part in a demonstration during a meeting of the Administrative Council, symbolically showering delegates with chocolate coins to signify that the member states are solely interested in milking the organisation as a cash cow.

The EPO examiners were also demonstrating in September in Brussels.

Mr Thierry Sueur, a patent agent from Air Liquide and lobbyist for large corporations inside Business Europe (ex-UNICE), is pointing at the cash cow problem in an Interview for the Future (p292):

Within the political sphere, there are several problems to be solved: in the biotech field, in the software field, the Community patent. However, I am convinced that the way the EPO is managed today (by the Administrative Council) is such that it will mean either the death of the EPO or its transformation into a cash machine.