Relationships between EU Commission and the tobacco industry have not been transparent enough. There’s nothing new under the sun, we already know the Maltese Commissioner John Dalli’s scandal who had to resign under Barroso’s Commission in 2012. Nowadays Emily O’Reilly, the European Ombudsman, conducted an inquiry and has found unclear meetings and relations between the Commission and the tobacco’s organizations.
The EU Commission is not fully implementing the UN World Health Organization (WHO) rules on transparency about the meetings with tobacco industry’s lobbyists.
Tobacco’s lobbies and EU Commission relationships
Meetings between tobacco’s organizations and EU Commission have been under wraps. Relationships that sometimes remain in the shadow of EU buildings’ corridors. In most of the cases, according with the European Ombudsman report, the Commission publishs such meetings only in response to access of documents requests from MEPs. Only the DG Health is respecting transparency rules by publishing those meetings.
The conclusion of Emily O’Reilly is that the EU Commission’s approach to publishing such meetings is unreliable, inadequate and unsatisfactory «The European Commission has a particular responsibility in its role as initiator of EU legislation to ensure that policy-making in public health is as transparent as possible. This is all the more true when it comes to tobacco control, for which there is a dedicated UN framework. The UN framework applies to all EU institutions, who should implement these safeguards against undue tobacco lobbying. It is an opportunity for the Juncker Commission to be a global leader in this area of public health promotion ».
The complaint was brought by an NGO Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) that estimates that at least fourteen meetings between Commission officials and tobacco’s representatives have been undisclosed. Even if the EU Commission keeps records of these meetings and should have published them, according to the rules. Since December 2014, Commissioners and their closest policy advisors publish all the meetings with lobbies online, it should have been not so difficult to include lower-level meetings with tobacco lobbyists. That’s what the EU Ombudsman and the anti-corruption organization Transparency International think: there were certain meetings with lawyers representing the tobacco industry which were not considered as meetings for the purpose of lobbying.
The European Ombudsman called the Juncker Commission to publish all the meetings with the tobacco’s lobbies and to speedy reform of the EU’s lobbies register toward a mandatory system.
Furthermore, O’Reilly reminds that all EU Commission DGs have to respect the rules on transparency, not only the DG Health.
Transparency International: more transparency to monitor lobbies’ influence
«Meetings with lobbyists as well as their written input should be published so that the public – citizens, journalists or civil society – can monitor their influence and spot potential conflicts of interest or undue influence» says Daniel Freund from Transparency International EU, that through the web page Integrity Watch monitors the relationships between EU institutions and lobbies, as recently reported by East.
According to the anti-corruption organization , given that in Europe there are 700 thousands Europeans who prematurely die each year because of smoking , strict provisions on transparency measures are more and more necessary. Furthermore, Transparency International points that there are also other sectors where lobbies play a role by influencing EU institutions with a dramatic impact on citizens life: 430 thousands of people prematurely die each year because of air pollution, according to European Environment Agency. UK alone, as recently reported by The Guardian, counts 5,800 deaths related with diesel cars emissions. The Volkswagen’s scandal highlights, thanks to different reports, how car industry has been lobbying against stronger EU emissions standards.
Relationships between EU Commission and the tobacco industry have not been transparent enough. There’s nothing new under the sun, we already know the Maltese Commissioner John Dalli’s scandal who had to resign under Barroso’s Commission in 2012. Nowadays Emily O’Reilly, the European Ombudsman, conducted an inquiry and has found unclear meetings and relations between the Commission and the tobacco’s organizations.
