With policymakers in Brussels steadily eroding the EU Green Deal ahead of next month’s European elections, governments, NGOs and scientists have joined forces to counter this short-sighted political point-scoring. On 14 May, environment ministers from 11 member states issued a joint letter calling for the reversal of obstructionist countries’ sudden opposition to the Natural Restoration Law’s final green light.

This initiative notably arrived a day after 140 environmental NGOs published an open letter lambasting the EU’s green backtracking, particularly fueled by the likes of Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

Lamenting how Europe’s “basic environmental standards” are being scrapped “to appease industry lobbyists,” the letter’s signatories highlight the host of other diluted, blocked or outright abandoned Green Deal files “despite the growing evidence of looming ecological collapse.”

With calls for a European “right to a healthy environment” re-emerging in May, achieving this noble ambition will require a broad coalition of incoming MEPs to crack down on ecologically-destructive industries’ excessive lobbying influence while fending off a potential far-right, anti-green lurch.

Big Tobacco ‘poisoning the planet’

In this climate, the tobacco industry remains one of Europe’s worst offenders. Take the conflict of interest scandal involving Jan Hoffman, a former DG SANTE official who had worked on issues of tobacco traceability right before jumping to Dentsu Tracking, the tobacco industry-linked firm controversially awarded the contract to run the EU’s tobacco track and trace system.

Big Tobacco continues to aggressively lobby EU policymakers to delay effective, citizen-first policies, such as the recommendation on smoke-free environments to tighten rules on tobacco usage in public places as well as the long-awaited revisions of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) and Tobacco Taxation Directive (TTD). BAT has notably made clear its intention to interfere with the latter, blatantly disregarding the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)’s Article 5.3 lobbying rules as well as its ITP Protocol’s Article 8 stipulations on industry-independent track and trace.

This lobbying-induced regulatory vacuum enables the industry to continue freely polluting and maximising profits at the expense of Europe’s social and environmental well-being – a reality highlighted by the European Parliament’s Working Group on Tobacco in its new White Paper. The fruit of a multi-sector collaboration including MEP Pierre Larrouturou, NGO coalition the SmokeFree Partnership and WHO FCTC Program Director Kelvin Khow, the White Paper cites a landmark WHO report revealing how the tobacco industry is “poisoning our planet.”

Beyond causing over 8 million preventable deaths annually, Khow’s contribution spotlights how Big Tobacco also destroys 600 million trees, razes 200,000 hectares of land and guzzles over 20 billion tonnes of water. Tobacco production accounts for 5% of global deforestation and over 80 million tonnes of annual CO2 while cigarettes remain “the most littered item on the planet,” with roughly 4.5 trillion highly-toxic filters polluting the world’s oceans, beaches, parks and soils every year.

Moving forward, the MEP-led White Paper rightly advocates for the TTD-TPD revision process to address this scourge. According to its authors, WHO FCTC-aligned measures such as banning cigarette filters, imposing “polluter pays” clean-up obligations and prohibiting tobacco companies from promoting greenwashed ‘ESG’ credentials will be crucial in tackling Big Tobacco’s environmental carnage while countering its lobbying influence.

‘Big Toxics’ dissolving Green Deal

A leading White Paper contributor, the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has rightly questioned why the “public interest firewall…on public health matters,” applied to the tobacco lobby – in theory if not in practice – has not been extended to Europe’s chemicals industry. Dubbed the ‘Big Toxics,’ the industry’s four largest chemicals companies and three EU trade associations are amongst the biggest spenders in Brussels, outspending even Big Tech according to the CEO’s LobbyFacts initiative.

This excessive influence has delayed the REACH regulation reform aimed at enhancing public health and environmental protection against toxic chemicals. Aggressively opposing REACH from its inception using dubious research, countless loophole requests among a wider arsenal of influence, the Big Toxics continue to use fearmongering narratives to impede its much-needed revision.

While the Commission resisted the industry’s initial assault on the Green Deal’s chemicals pillar, the chemicals lobby has capitalised on mounting political aversion towards green regulations. With key Green Deal files falling off the agenda, Big Toxics are now targeting the EU proposal to ban polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – so-called ‘forever chemicals. 

According to the CEO, PFAS’s devasting impact in Europe includes an estimated €52-84 billion in annual health costs – likely contributing to cancer and fertility issues – and €10-20 billion in environmental restoration costs in addition to the “unquantifiable damage and suffering” these toxic chemicals generate. With the Big Toxics lobby shielding its companies from responsibility for this ecological and social plague, EU policymakers must take a strong stand.

Carmakers driving green goals into wall

As with the Big Toxics, Europe’s automotive industry has seized on the changing political winds to dilute the Green Deal’s ambition. Led by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), the industry’s lobbying machine went into overdrive ahead of the vote on the Euro 7 regulation setting limits on highly-polluting car emissions like nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulphur dioxide (SO2). According to environmental NGOs, these efforts helped to secure a regulatory freeze for exhaust pollution, with Transport & Environment’s Lucien Mathieu claiming that the car lobby’s victory proves that it is ”back in control.”

Ahead of the watered-down Euro 7 deal finalised by MEPs and member-state delegates last December, experts from the Consortium for Ultra-low Vehicle Emissions (CLOVE) warned that its lack of progress on emissions rules could generate €100 billion in health and environmental costs by 2050 due to excessive nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution from combustion engines. Responsible for 49,000 premature EU deaths every year, NO2 also indirectly fuels the formation of Particulate Matter (PM), which causes a further 240,000 excess annual deaths.

As environmental consultancy CE Delft has highlighted, these premature deaths could be slashed in half if cars’ road emissions matched the misleading levels reported in laboratory testing. The automotive industry continues to exploit this regulatory loophole on lab versus real-world emissions testing, with lobbyists using a series of undeclared Commission meetings to maintain a status quo subjecting European citizens to lethal, avoidable emissions.

Defending environmental rights

Building on MEPs’ recent ban of Amazon lobbyists over their unwillingness to transparently engage with policymakers concerning labour rights and well-being issues, the next Parliament should consider red-carding the bloc’s most toxic and high-spending industry lobbies. Doing so would send a powerful message that Europe places its citizens above corporate interests while helping create the conditions for a long-overdue right to a healthy environment in Europe.

With a new crop of young, ambitious environmental activists set be elected to the Parliament and civil society calls mounting for the Council of Europe to enshrine environmental health into the continent’s human rights system, a window of opportunity is opening for European institutions to take decisive action. Working in close collaboration with NGOs and researchers, MEPs must launch a sweeping counteroffensive against the Green Deal’s betrayal and the noxious lobbying influence at its core.