Representatives from the world’s top seven fossil fuel companies by global revenue, along with a network of over 50 organisations, held more than 1,000 meetings with European officials between 2019 and 2024, according to a new report published by Transparency International.
Two-thirds of these meetings concerned the Green Deal, the EU’s strategy for reaching its 2050 climate neutrality goal, the report states.
“One subject that is recurring over and over again is the push for the use of hydrogen, but also the use of carbon storage and capture systems,” Raphaël Kergueno, senior policy officer at Transparency International, told Euronews.
“Now, these systems are quite controversial today, but they found themselves their way into the new commission priorities,” he added.
The total lobbying budget of the ‘Big Seven’, namely Shell, Total, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Chevron and BP, was close to €64 million, placing them among the most well-resourced organisations in Brussels, Kergueno said.
‘Pipeline of power’
Transparency International also found an overlap with the networks and the delegates that were present at COP28, the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference which took place in Dubai last year.
“We saw at the COP28 that it was the COP with the highest presence of fossil fuel lobbyists or organisations linked to the fossil fuel industry in the history of the COP,” Kergueno said.
He noted that the parties taking part in the discussions ultimately decided not to go for a “total phaseout” of fossil fuels.
“This pipeline of power extends from the EU level all the way to the global level”, he added.
‘Opening the door’ to fossil fuel companies
There have been nearly 900 meetings between representatives of Ursula von der Leyen’s commission and fossil fuel lobbyists during its time in office, according to another report published by Fossil Free Politics, a campaign coordinated by Friends of the Earth Europe, Corporate Europe Observatory, Food and Water Europe and Greenpeace.
“The fossil fuel industry was very successful to weaken, delay and block the much needed climate action,” Kim Claes, Fossil Free Politics campaigner, told Euronews.
The report also claims that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine facilitated fossil fuel companies’ political access to advise on Europe’s response to the energy crisis.
“There was a REPowerEU agenda and they opened the door for fossil industry to ask for their input,” Claes said. “And they basically gave them free access to draft a new plan for the EU to respond on the threats linked to the Russians invasion and to make EU less dependent on Russian gas.”
The issue of lobbying appears to be on the EU’s radar at least. In her letter to the commissioner designate who will be in charge of transparency issues, von der Leyen said she wanted to strengthen the European Commission’s transparency system.
The Commission called to subject all managers to its transparency register: a database listing organisations that try to influence the European institutions’ decisions.
