Getting EU policymakers to side with the people instead of fossil fuel profits – a short (ongoing) history
In late April 2024 members of the European Parliament from the liberal Renew party voted against holding fossil fuel companies accountable for their role in the cost-of-living crisis, siding with right-wing groups and allowing the European Commission to avoid scrutiny over its industry links.
From the onset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, fossil fuel companies have enjoyed unprecedented access to decision-making, taking a lead in Europe’s energy crisis response whilst scaling back on their own climate commitments. The same industry that has ensured Europe’s continued fossil fuel dependence was advising, manipulating and threatening decision-makers to ‘solve’ an energy crisis caused by fossil fuel dependence by making Europe even more dependent on fossil fuels. Politicians were and are still welcoming fossil fuel companies as advisers instead of arsonists, failing to recognise their vested interests and their role in creating, prolonging, and profiting from the energy and climate crisis. Fossil fuel lobbyists’ role in shaping REPowerEU has meant a programme ostensibly focused on energy efficiency and accelerating the clean energy transition has instead secured the fossil fuel industry’s future business. In the name of urgency, they were pushing for ever more gas infrastructure and gas-based projects, while weakening social measures that would have helped millions.
Thanks to their oversized influence, the Fossil Fuel Industry has stalled vital political action on energy markets, reaping billions in profits. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, Chevron, and ExxonMobil have made more than €200 billion in profits. Millions of us have been left to pay the price through higher and higher household bills.
As a response to a petition launched by the Fossil Free Politics coalition, signed by over 91 civil society organisations, the Parliament’s Petitions Committee set up a public hearing in 2024 to investigate fossil fuel companies’ undue influence on the European Commission’s energy crisis response. The coalition called to hold the fossil fuel industry to account for its role in the energy and cost of living crisis and to call for restrictions on fossil fuel lobbying.
The hearing brought together experts in tobacco lobbying, political economy, and energy poverty. Anna Gilmore, Director of the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath, introduced the idea of regulating the fossil fuel industry like tobacco. She warned that the fossil fuel industry was using the same lobbying and PR tactics as the tobacco industry.
That’s why one of the main demands of the Fossil Free Politics Campaign is to institute a firewall to restrict the undue influence of the fossil fuel lobby over climate and energy policy-making (like the firewall imposed on the tobacco industry), keeping Commission advisory groups free from corporate control, and ensuring that EU decision-making centres hear from voices of groups that represent the public interest.
In March 2024, the European Parliament’s petitions committee negotiated a Short Resolution on “The responsibilities of the fossil fuel companies in the cost of living crisis.” But, in an unprecedented move, the EPP walked out of the negotiations, followed by Renew. On Monday evening, the European Parliament voted to reject the Greens/EFA’ proposal to add a Resolution on “The responsibilities of fossil fuel companies in the cost of living crisis” to the plenary agenda.
”Apparently, EPP and Renew didn’t want to deal with the fossil industry’s overbearing lobbying power undermining our democracies. It’s clear that the fossil fuel industry has too much power over EU policymaking. Voters electing the next Parliament want it to fight for people, not corporate profits. On the other hand, it is still heartening that almost half of the MEPs present voted to hold the polluters to account, but the fight for fossil-free politics can not stop there.”
said Kim Claes of the Fossil Free Politics coalition.
The ‘Fossil Free Politics’ campaign was launched in 2019 with the support of nearly 200 civil society organisations, and is calling for an official limit to the power of fossil fuel lobbyists in Europe that mirrors what’s in place for the tobacco industry. Friends of the Earth Europe, in collaboration with Corporate Europe Observatory, Food and Water Europe and Greenpeace, are coordinating this campaign.
More info: fossilfreepolitics.org
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Fossil Free Politics
Politicians should make climate laws to protect people – not please the fossil fuel industry. We need to cut fossil fuel interests out of our politics, similar to existing restrictions on the tobacco industry.
