Next EU Parliament must crack down on lobbying from ecologically-toxic industries
There could be toxins like asbestos in your makeup. 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.
