Brussels, 05/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - Large energy and oil companies have privileged access to the European Commissioners for the Climate and for Energy, according to a new study published on Thursday 5 November by the organisation Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO).
Stressing the extent to which these Commissioners have their doors and their ears open to these lobbies, the study, entitled “Cooking the Planet: Big Energy's year of privileged access to Europe's Climate Commissioners”, criticises the influence of a sector which contributes enormously to climate change on the Commission's climate and energy decisions.
The study is based on the analysis of data provided by the European Commission. It shows that in the first year in office of the Juncker Commission, 80% of meetings with the European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, Miguel Arias Canete, and with the Vice-President of the Commission with responsibility for the Energy Union, and with their respective cabinets, were meetings with industry lobbyists, chiefly major fossil fuel companies.
More specifically, out of 516 meetings held between 1 November 2014 and 1 October 2015, 413 were granted to industry, 79 to organisations of public interest (such as NGOs, unions, etc.) and 24 to other parties. And 74% of the “encounters” planned to debate climate and energy policies went to the energy company BP and the oil companies E-on, Statoil and Shell.
In its analysis, CEO draws a distinction between meetings and encounters, with the latter representing the number of times the names of the parties are referred to in the diaries of the Commissioners and/or their cabinets. The organisation feels that the promise made by President Juncker to ensure “balance and representativeness in the stakeholders that Commissioners meet” has manifestly not been kept.
CEO believes that this privileged access for industrial giants which have an interest in maintaining a model based on fossil fuels is reflected in the Commission's “industry-friendly” policies, as regards the Energy Union, the reform of the emissions quota trading system (ETS) and the EU's position ahead of COP 21. This is “extremely worrying (…). While the science says we must urgently and drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions, boost renewables and dramatically increase energy efficiency, the Commission is sadly moving in the opposite direction”, commented Belen Balanya, a researcher with CEO. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)