This new episode of EU Watchdog Radio is dedicated to the Global Climate strike on Friday 19th March. Two experts talk about how the current proposed climate policies are too oriented towards market-based solutions and are influenced by the same industry that created climate change: the fossil fuel industry. And hence the importance of Fossil Free Politics.

To keep temperature rises below 1.5oC, the EU needs to decommission existing gas infrastructure as well as stop building new fossil gas infrastructure. But the gas industry has a powerful weapon to stop this happening: the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT).

How did EU governments decide to oppose a global measure that could boost production of COVID vaccines and medicines for the global south? You won’t get the slightest hint from official EU sources. But leaked documents reveal that the Commission and member states see the real problem as a mere PR issue of how to deflect criticism. Given the pandemic, their position seems indefensible.

Big Tobacco has been influencing policy to its advantage for decades—postponing, protesting, promoting untruths, playing the victim and pushing new technologies—in order to disrupt tobacco control policies. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is the best global tool to combat tobacco industry interference, providing clear guidelines to protect public health policies and reduce tobacco-related deaths.

The European Commission and some EU-member states are playing dirty in the WTO-debate on patents and accessCovid-19 vaccines. That is shown today by new research of lobby-watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO).

In this new episode of EU Watchdog Radio we dive into one of the biggest examples of ‘cognitive dissonance’ in recent history. Every (European) policymaker knows by now that fossil fuels should stay in the ground, but yet they keep defending the EU’s membership of a treaty that defends fossil fuel investments: the Energy Charter Treat (ECT).

In this new episode we dive into the incredible story on how Fortress Europe is being constructed by an European agency called the ‘European Border and Coast Guard Agency’ AKA Frontex, almost in the dark and without any democratic oversight. With billions of EU tax payer’s money and the help of dozens of lobbyists from defence, arms and surveillance technology industries, Frontex is creating a world that George Orwell would have found inspiring when writing his book ‘1984’.

Today is the EU Commission's deadline for responding to the EU Ombudsman’s inquiry into the lack of transparency and accountability around the EU’s Covid19 vaccine negotiations with Big Pharma. In addition to drawing conclusions on the counter-productive secrecy, the inquiry will hopefully result in large numbers of internal documents being disclosed.