The alleged benefits of Brussels’ Green Deal are so ambiguous that the European Commission had to pay environmental groups to promote its plans.
Dutch daily De Telegraaf this week got its hands on contracts which show organisations were even given specific metrics to demonstrate lobbying achievements with both Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and EU member states regarding the green agenda of Frans Timmermans, the bloc’s former Commissioner for Climate Action.
Unimpressed by Timmermans’ claim he “never concluded such contracts myself and was not directly involved in them during my time as European Commissioner,” the Dutch pro-farmers Boer Burger Beweging (BBB) party has called for Green Deal legislation—“insofar as it is already in force and may be unfairly influenced by taxpayer-funded green lobbyists”—to be suspended until details of the scandal have been “clarified.”
MEP Sander Smit raised the party’s concerns in the European Parliament on Wednesday, saying the issue needs to be “tackled.” Populist leader Geert Wilders also described Timmermans’ actions as “wrong wrong wrong.”
Brussels took the money used for lobbying from a billion-euro environmental subsidy. De Telegraaf reported that at least €700,000 of this taxpayer-funded pot was used to influence the farming debate in a more green-friendly direction—not that this has done much to shift public opinion. Environmentalist organisations were also paid to lobby for the controversial Nature Restoration Act, which imposes strict regulations on land and water use, ostensibly to prevent further environmental degradation.
Piotr Serafin, the recently appointed European Commissioner, has admitted in Parliament that this lobbying did take place, describing it as “inappropriate.” All the more so given the bloc’s supposed aversion to corruption and the manipulation of public opinion—though, it appears, only when it suits those in charge.
Serafin claimed these contracts “are being adjusted” and that “we are coming up with instructions for other subsidy programs” to be more open. But some expect that this is merely the tip of the iceberg, and that similar lobbying operations will continue both on green and other issues.
“I want to know if this also plays a role in other themes, such as migration,” Dutch MEP Dirk Gotink (European People’s Party), a member of the budget control committee, said:
This is not a smear campaign against the environmental movement. Of course they are allowed to lobby. I am targeting the European Commission. This seems to be a highly orchestrated interplay between a green coalition led by Timmermans and a left-wing majority in the European Parliament.
