The EU Commission must provide guarantees on climate, nature and public health, ensuring the protection of people
The political direction set by President von der Leyen and the early parliamentary debates reveal a concerning shift: tackling the climate, biodiversity, and pollution crises is being deprioritised in favour of industry demands. With the Commissioners’ hearings approaching, the coming weeks will be critical for restoring the balance between the public good and corporate influence.
According to the new mission letters, all Commissioners must meet arbitrary ‘burden reduction’ targets and simplify legislation, posing the risk of delayed or weakened environmental action. It is not enough for this Commission to vaguely claim it will not deregulate environmental, public health and social standards. We demand clarity from President von der Leyen and her Commission on key issues:
No rollback of environmental, public health and social laws: President von der Leyen must make an unequivocal public commitment to uphold all existing environmental and climate EU laws and objectives, including those on sustainable finance and corporate accountability. We deplore the recent proposal by
President von der Leyen to delay the application of the EU Deforestation Regulation and call on the European Parliament and all EU governments to reject the European Commission’s proposal.
Acknowledge the triple planetary crisis: Nature conservation and pollution reduction are quietly being sidelined in favour of a narrow focus on decarbonisation that fails to grasp the interconnectedness of the crisis. The urgent need to tackle pollution is now framed under a chemicals industry package aiming at simplifying the law, instead of better protecting citizens from harmful chemicals. All Commissioners must recognize that restoring and protecting nature, as well as reducing pollution, are integral parts of the solution to combat climate change. Addressing these challenges requires immediate, sustained action. Now is the time to accelerate, not retreat.
Support for Green Deal implementation: Businesses and stakeholders need legal certainty underpinned by a clear long term vision and effective regulations. The Commission must pledge to swiftly publish essential guidance documents for implementing newly adopted laws, and making digital safety information, permitting and digital reporting the norm – allowing tracking of progress and benchmarking of industry performance. Furthermore, the Commission should prioritise effective enforcement of environmental laws to ensure a level playing field, supported by necessary financial investments to bolster administrative capacities at all levels.
Balanced public participation: All public consultations must be carried in a way that ensures inclusivity of diverse views and avoids dominance by private influence over public interest [1]. In order to do so, particular attention must be paid to the voices of civil society organisations and their input must be routinely incorporated in upcoming dialogues and decision-making processes. Newly proposed mechanisms like ‘reality checks’ and ‘competitiveness checks’ should not be manipulated as tools for corporate lobbyists to hinder EU actions. The Commission must also resist using political ‘urgency’ as an excuse to bypass proper public scrutiny and adhere to its own Better Regulations guidelines to uphold transparency, consultations, and evidence-based decisions.
Collaboration across key policy areas: The Executive Vice-Presidents for Cohesion and Reforms, and for Clean, Just, and Competitive Transition, should be given clear guidance to collaborate effectively across key sectors—such as agriculture, transport, and fisheries—to ensure full alignment with green transition goals.
Firewalls between national interests and EU policy: Commissioners with previous ties to governments or political parties that opposed environmental regulations must be held accountable and rejected by the Parliament in case they are unable to dissociate themselves from earlier positions. Strong safeguards must be put in place to prevent conflicts of interest, for example in the application of forest and nature restoration rules.
Public money for proven climate solutions: The Commission must commit to allocate public funds solely to proven, cost-effective climate solutions. Unproven or expensive technologies should not receive the same level of financial and administrative support as established methods like nature-positive deployment of renewable energy, energy efficiency and nature-based solutions for climate adaptation. Economic activities that allow the EU’s zero-pollution and biodiversity objectives to materialise should be prioritised through public funding.
Despite carefully crafted mission letters, President von der Leyen has openly admitted that the focus has shifted away from climate action and the European Green Deal. In the EU Parliament, her own political group is pushing to weaken democratically adopted regulations on critical issues such as forest protection, greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, and corporate accountability for human rights and environmental violations.
We call on President von der Leyen to address these critical gaps before the new European Commission assumes office, and we urge the European Parliament to raise these concerns during the upcoming Commissioner confirmation hearings.
Notes
[1] Recent reports show that fossil fuel lobbyists continue to benefit from an alarming level of access to the European Commission.
