Press

The EU’s 300 billion euro response to the growing energy crisis presented by the Commission today, which emphasized ‘eye-blinding ambitions’ for energy efficiency and investments in renewable energy production, should not distract from the fact that the fossil fuel energy companies managed to get their future business secured as well. The announced EU Energy Platform for joint purchases of gas, LNG and hydrogen, which will also identify new gas infrastructure needs, was revealed by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) to be advised by the gas industry, a huge conflict of interest.

On the eve of the launch of RePowerEU, a new report commissioned by lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and Transnational Institute (TNI) has found that the EU’s plan to drastically increase the use of renewable hydrogen (H2) is not realistic, and will hurt North African countries' economy.

Lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has obtained recent meeting documents from the European Commission (EC) that reveal that major fossil fuel companies are influencing the EU’s response to the energy crisis.   

Civil society organisations deeply regret that the much needed revision of the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive (SUD) is being postponed and ask the European Commission to officially present a new publication date within the briefest delays. The publication should take place at the latest by the end of May.

The pesticide industry lobby group CropLife Europe (CLE) and their allies have staged an immense and well-resourced lobby campaign against the flagship-policy of the EU: the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategy (both pillars of the EU Green Deal). On behalf of agrochemical multinationals, CropLife organised a fierce attack on the EU's ambition to protect ecosystems and public health by reducing pesticide risk and use by 50% by 2030 (1).

Over 40 NGOs and trade unions working on transparency, media, democracy and digital rights, asked EU policy-makers this morning to make urgent improvements to the transparency of the trilogue negotiations on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), two crucial new EU regulations or so called Digital Services pack. 

The European Ombudsman has re-opened an inquiry on how the European Commission (EC) has dealt with transparency requests by lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) for public access to documents concerning the negotiations for the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines. Despite promises made by the Commission last year, the negotiations are still shrouded in opacity and instead of improvement there now seems to be a regression.

As the European Parliament prepares to vote this Thursday on the Digital Services Act (DSA),  new research by CEO shows that intense corporate lobbying by Big Tech contributed to the EU co-legislators abandoning their original call for a phase out to a ban of surveillance advertising (involving intensive user tracking and profiling). This week’s vote is crucial as it provides a final opportunity for the Parliament to reverse this position before it starts trilogue negotiations with Council and Commission.

A Presidency prepared in close collaboration with the French corporate sector which is setting a policy agenda that strongly reflects business demands.That is the verdict of Corporate Europe Observatory and Observatoire des multinationales in their new report “Under the influence: the distorted priorities of the French EU Council Presidency”, published today, in the run up to the start of the French Presidency on 1 January.