Private energy companies have gained a ‘privileged access’ to Europe’s climate commissioners, according to a newly published report, ‘Cooking the planet: Big Energy’s year of privileged access to Europe’s climate commissioners’.
The 25-page report, published by EU transparency campaign group Corporate Europe Observatory, outlines how often European climate and energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete, and European Commission Vice-President for Energy Union, Maroš Šefčovič, have been meeting with private energy companies.
According to the report, in their first year in office, Cañete, Šefčovič, and their cabinets have had 927 energy related ‘encounters’, with 669 of these from business groups.
An encounter is an instance of a meeting between either Cañete, Šefčovič or their two respective cabinets and one or more organisations.
“According to data extracted from the Commission itself, 80 per cent of their meetings were with the private sector. Big Energy dominated, including many of those companies most responsible for cooking the climate: in the last year, three quarters of the encounters with the energy industry to discuss climate and energy policies were with fossil fuel companies,” said the report.
The report’s authors uncovered that 351 entities had meetings with the two commissioners, with 270 of these being business groups. 120 of these groups were companies, while 118 were trade & business associations and 32 were ‘other industry representatives’.
Even more damning is the “impressive number of total encounters were with the fossil fuel industry”. According to the report, more than 40 per cent of all encounters were with business groups - this represents 282 of the 669 business encounters.
According to their data, BP and E.ON had the most encounters of any company with the commissioners. BP met with Cañete and his cabinet four and six times respectively, while Šefčovič and his cabinet met with the oil giant one and four times respectively. E.ON met with all parties the same number of times as BP - four times with Cañete, seven times with his cabinet, once with Šefčovič and three times with his cabinet.
While there seemed to be seemed to be favouritism towards businesses, the two Commissioners and their cabinets also made 202 encounters with NGOs, with Cañete and his cabinet making 159 of these encounters.
Corporate Europe Observatory researcher and campaigner Belén Balanyá said, “This data is extremely worrying given the sensitive topics these Commissioners have been in charge of over the past year.”
“Industry-friendly policies on car emissions, energy union, the emissions trading scheme, and the upcoming COP21 UN climate negotiations clearly reflect the disturbing level of access to decision-makers enjoyed by dirty energy."
“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.”
The report concluded by saying, "Now it is the time for radical action. It is time to simply forbid the influence of dirty energy on climate and energy policy."