Our grassroots network from all over Europe has spent decades fighting for a sustainable and just world. We’ve won key battles on climate, food and farming, resource use and curbing corporate power at the EU level and beyond. Here are some of our highlights:
Groundbreaking climate laws. Our 2008 Big Ask climate campaign won world-first climate laws in the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Ireland, and the UK.
Giving countries the mandate to ban GMOs. Thanks to coordinated campaigning across Europe, our work has made sure EU Member States have their right to ban the cultivation of GMOs built into law.
Stopping dangerous trade deals. We played a key role in turning the tide of public opinion against the proposed EU-US trade agreement – known as TTIP. The deal would have weakened food standards in Europe, made it more difficult to pass laws to protect the climate, and given even more power to large corporations. Working with our national member groups, we helped gather over 3 million signatures calling for the deal to be scrapped, committed hundreds of local authorities to becoming “TTIP-free zones”, and mobilised tens of thousands of people to take to the streets. This public pressure helped push the talks to break down in 2016.
Saving EU nature protection laws. In 2014, the incoming EU Commission arrived with a mandate to update the EU’s flagship nature protection laws, which cover about 20% of its land area. Recognising that this would lead to the laws being rewritten and weakened, we worked with our NGO partners to bring the voices of over half a million people to Brussels, calling on decision-makers to scrap the process and save the nature laws. Two years later, we won.
Giving people the right to produce their own renewable energy. Big energy companies are moving too slowly to make the transition we need to a 100% clean energy system – and their exploitative prices contribute to energy poverty. Thanks to our campaigning, people living in the EU now have the right to produce their own energy and build community-run clean power projects together.
Pushing for world-first laws to tackle single-use plastics. We played a key role in pushing the EU to pass a historic set of laws to curb the production and consumption of single-use plastics in 2018.
Big wins for the environment across Europe. In recent years, our member groups have achieved huge successes for people and planet. These include fracking bans in Scotland and the rest of the UK, passing a law in France holding corporations accountable for human rights violations and environmental damage overseas, preventing cons a third runway at Heathrow – the UK’s biggest airport, and stopping oil drilling in the Adriatic Sea and Norway’s Lofoten islands.
Read more about our campaign highlights in our annual reviews.
