The US polluters that are rewriting the EU's human rights and climate law

https://www.somo.nl/the-secretive-cabal-of-us-polluters-that-is-rewriting-the-eus-human-rights-and-climate-law/

by saubeidl • 8 months ago

448 240 8 months ago

People like to hold up Macron as being a good politician on the EU level, but from this it seems he has to go and is in the same league as the more obvious harmful Merz.

mono4422• 8 months ago

These directives are mostly useless bureaucracy. I don't think anything of value has been lost.

My experience with European Union is that the EU politicians mostly live in a ivory tower and spend their days producing garbage laws and aren't actually addressing anything important.

stavros• 8 months ago

Yeah no, the GDPR and DMA are definitely toothless bureaucracy from out-of-touch politicians.

Get out of here.

dataflow• 8 months ago

The sheer effort going into getting rid of the "bureaucracy" isn't proportional to its "useless"ness, is it? It's not like these companies are a coalition of mom-and-pop shops struggling to keep the light on or something. If the directives are so incredibly useless, then these companies could easily let the people get their way and be happy while they keep chugging along making the same profits. Clearly they don't see that as an option.

piva007• 8 months ago

Nothing important like digital rights, environmental issues (pesticides, nitrogen levels), harmonising trading so every member-state can compete as equals through the whole EU/EEA market.

Only useless bureaucracy which you don't give any examples of.

mono4422• 8 months ago

There are many examples of this, the most recent one would be regulation regarding plastic bottle caps.

kristjank3• 8 months ago

Oh, hey, no problem, here's some examples.

EU has tried repeatedly and still tried to undermine safe communication, end to end encryption (chat control), freedom of the press and of personal speech (democracy shield).

Its environmental regulations have endlessly complicated the most basic of business operations like selling anything that comes in cardboard boxes or fixing a car with non-OEM parts.

Useless EU inventions that come to mind are the cucumber and banana size regulations, non-removable bottle caps, mandatory 15-minute screen standbys or click through a menu, sound volume warnings on phones, mandatory driver assistance systems in cars (that don't work well in cheap vehicles, but still increase the cost and can't be permanently turned of as a preference), mandatory start-stop in ICE vehicles (which lowers lifetime of bearing materials), rising consumer goods import costs because de minimis is getting axed etc.

bilekas• 8 months ago

My experience with European Union is that the EU politicians mostly live in a ivory tower and spend their days producing garbage laws and aren't actually addressing anything important

Regulations are the unsexy laws that don't make the news because the specifically PREVENT things like water pollution, food and drug safety, employment rights.

Lets see how the US companies will act in the best interests of the public without regulation. Then come back and say its useless bureaucracy to ban lead in water, or allow chcemical dumping into rivers and lakes.

It's like saying "Well we don't need all this regulation around flying because the number of accidents is minor" such nonsense.

iberator4• 8 months ago

You are wrong mate. 80% of EU decisions are good for average joe (health, pollution, labour laws, agriculture boost, funding of A LOT of infrastructure like roads, railroads, airports, power plants and science.

For example Poland and similar countries are amazing at the moment because of EU funding and protection.

Without the EU half of the members would be like Ukraine (rampant corruption, pollution etc etc).

In the essence the EU is net positive, despite some stupid ideas(government spying, free trade deals with south america and rushed green revolution). But still: it's very positive. Just compare Poland to Ukraine. (Ukraine was richer than Poland in 1993...)

Mass migration is real issue now and that's about it.

My 2 cents

171862744016• 8 months ago

In my opinion the EU is still a better steward of privacy rights, than my actual country.

free652• 8 months ago

(Ukraine was richer than Poland in 1993...)

Lol that's an absolute false statement. Ukraine was never richer than Poland, when it became a country (1991) economy went down a lot. So in 1993 - hahaha.

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Poland/Ukr...

deaux• 8 months ago

Leaked documents 1 obtained by SOMO reveal how, under the pretext of the now-near-magical concept of ‘competitiveness’, these companies plotted to hijack democratically adopted EU laws and strip them of all meaningful provisions, including those on climate transition plans, civil liability, and the scope of supply chains. EU officials appear not to have known who they were up against.

I'm seeing the exact same narrative more and more right here on HN, in every thread in any way related to the EU - the idea that the likes of GDPR are destroying "competitiveness". That if only all of it would be axed, "competitiveness" would arise once more.

It's not a coincidence, especially with so much FAANG employees, either ex- or current, who spend even more on lobbying than the likes of Exxon highlighted in this article. Though it seems naive to blindly hope that even in the age of mass astroturfing, this place is somehow immune.

It's frightening just how similar the playbook and the players involved are, big oil and big tech being oh so alike.

myaccountonhn• 8 months ago

There's a lot of astroturfing happening, including on HN, so it's not all that surprising.

impossiblefork2• 8 months ago

I agree completely and have noticed the same thing also on Reddit.

It's obviously not Europeans pushing this, and I think this is what led to the new stuff allowing LLM training on PII.

OvbiousError• 8 months ago

It's happening on a different level as well. More and more developers are moving from the US to popular startup hubs in Europe, e.g. Amsterdam, Copenhagen. They were often higher up in the FAANG chain, so they are immediately quite high up where the arrive, and they are bringing the American culture with them. E.g. what do you mean you're taking a month of holiday, or what do you mean, you're staying at home with your wife to take care of your baby. And yes, you have a right to that, but it's different to take that time when you feel it's accepted or frowned upon.

RGamma3• 8 months ago

I'm atheist, yet the behavior of Big Oil over these past decades is strong evidence that demonic possession may in fact be real.

saubeidl18• 8 months ago

The demon is greed and its false god is the market.

ap99• 8 months ago

Are you proposing the abolishment of the market?

fnordsensei• 8 months ago

Planned economies don’t work great beyond small scopes.

The market does work, but it’s a giant paper clip AI and needs regulation in order to not turn everything into paper clips.

penguin_booze2• 8 months ago

Hey, but greed is good, and market solves everything.

barney54• 8 months ago

Or they like staying in business and producing energy that people willingly purchase.

madeforhnyo• 8 months ago

If they're not doing evil work, why all the secrecy? It's not like they're going bankrupt either since, like you mentioned, the demand is not going away

croes• 8 months ago

You could say the same about any drug lord.

If your business harms the masses maybe you should overthink your business model.

tedggh• 8 months ago

Welp, it has worked ok for most of us. It’s below zero outside my house is at 22C and I have strawberries and avocados on the kitchen counter. This weekend I’ll drive with my family to a wedding 500km away and will spend $40 in transportation. With all I hate O&G can’t deny it has made my life easier in many ways.

wohoef• 8 months ago

“Im part of the shrinking privileged minority”

Wololooo• 8 months ago

This is the most "I've got mine" statement that I have seen these past months.

It's not because it was "OK" so far that it is going to be OK moving forward, it's just kicking the can down the road and hope for a miracle, and they have done this since people have wondered about greenhouse gases (and this happened very early on).

Note that most of the issues we will be facing was not because of all the conveniences, but just because doing things in a way that was sustainable and/or more regulated would have hit the bottom line of big oil...

At the end of the day, it will not matter whose pockets were lined when there is no more food to feed people...

haritha-j• 8 months ago

"most" of us? Really? Once you add up the people in the countries the West invaded / started wars for the sake of oil, countries where the oil industry gets rich while the population suffers in poverty due to oil induced instability like Venezuela, all the countries where climate change induced national disasters have destroyed lives and livelihoods you'd find that its not really 'most' of us. But hey at least you have your strawberries.

arp2422• 8 months ago

In 200 years time Ken Burns the 6th is going to make a documentary about climate change, and quotes like this will be read out to illustrate just how short-sighted, selfish, and hyper-nihilistic people were.

0dayz• 8 months ago

The bible uses demons more as metaphors of the saying: power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely.

(evil spirit however is a real thing).

So you're not wrong.

astrobe_• 8 months ago

Nope. That's the divine invisible hand of the market.

thiagoeh• 8 months ago

If you want an humourous take based on this notion, read the Laundry Files book series by Charles Stross

RGamma3• 8 months ago

Heh, I think that notion came from watching Nefarious, the 2023 movie by Solomon and Konzelman, where a psychiatrist tries to clarify whether an insane (or possessed?) death row inmate is fit to be executed (they talk about how humanity thinks they've won, while evil is quietly everywhere). The middling review scores don't do it justice.

Yet another thing on my reading list, I guess.

juujian• 8 months ago

Funny enough, the video game Doom is actually making this exact point I discovered somewhat recently.

nahuel0x• 8 months ago

There’s something profound behind that funny observation. God is a creation of the human mind, yet humanity forgets that it created God. The idea then appears as something external, becoming an independent power that shapes and controls human consciousness. Humans become alienated from what they themselves produced.

This was Feuerbach’s insight, and Marx extended it: just as humanity creates God and then treats him as an autonomous force, it also creates Capital. But Capital comes to operate as if it were an external, self-moving—almost “demonic”—power. People end up acting not according to human needs, but according to the logic of Capital itself.

From this perspective, the Marxist project is not merely a struggle against the bourgeoisie; it is an effort to overcome humanity’s alienation from its own creations—to reclaim power from the human-made “demon” that has come to dominate social life.

hopelite• 8 months ago

“Big oil” is not demonic it is your God as much as it is everyone’s God that uses electricity and all the things you have that are only possible through oil. You are likely not even remotely aware of just how many things you have and do that are only possible because of oil.

Hint: it’s basically 100% of things you have and do. Even your minor deities, Renewable Energy are all a creation and possible due to your God, Big Oil.

RGamma3• 8 months ago

How about these companies go from "fuck your democracy lol" to "okay this is bad, this is how we can attempt to fix it". They are among the richest corporations humanity has ever seen.

The dependence on oil is physically plausible, the constant political or public subversion is not.

triceratops• 8 months ago

Is there a rule that you get to be an asshole as long as your products are useful?

When people demonize "Big Oil" they don't mean the product. They mean how the people who run it behave.

marcosdumay• 8 months ago

It's amazing how as soon as fast communication became available, how cartoonish villainous the powerful people turned out to be.

Cartoon villains are that way for absurdist comedy purposes, they weren't supposed to reflect reality.

rolandog• 8 months ago

Or worse, they weren't meant to be portrayed as edgy and misunderstood to lure lonely people into cults of hate.

NB: from what I understand, some cult members joined because they felt part of a community; so, to them, it has a high cost of leaving it because they feel like the other members are friends (kind of like FB/Meta).

jack_tripper11• 8 months ago

Well, under this interpretation all lobbying basically circumvents sovereign democracy, there's nothing out of the ordinary I found out in this article other than business as usual.

And the thing is, lobbying by domestic and foreign interests has been so normalized, that most people are already numb to it. Like Putin was even visiting his Austrian politicians buddies who then got jobs at Russian oil and gas companies after their terms and nobody in EU kicked much fuss about it when it was all done public and in the open and in 2022 we got to experience the consequences.

So as long as nobody from politics is going to jail for treason or insurrection, or at least lose their seat and generous pension over such blatant cases of corruption and treason, this will only continue or even grow larger, as those in power have proven to be unaccountable to anyone.

I don't know how we(the public) can fix this peacefully an democratically, as any party I can vote for gets captured by lobbyist interests who seek to undermine our interests.

bojan2• 8 months ago

This _is_ democracy. Europeans don't vote left and green.

Those groups have only 235 seats in the EU parliament out of 720.

jack_tripper11• 8 months ago

Europeans don't vote left and green.

Not difficult to see why when both parties have implemented policies that have become very unpopular with the masses. You're not gonna win voters on "let them eat cake" policies when the no. 1 concern of voters is keeping their job and affording the ever increasing bills.

Both left and green parties have been writing cheques that the working class had to cash, so now they're experiencing the backlash consequences of their actions. It's just democracy at work.

They need to "git gud" and give the people what they want if they want votes. It's really not rocket science, but self reflection seems to be heavily lacking in politics due to how detached the ruling class are from the working class.

danielscrubs• 8 months ago

Then no lobbying against the politicians would be needed to be done.

It’s easy to reduce it to party lines, but that kind of thinking is just wrong. Details matters.

Is there a word for reducing it to something abstract and then attacking the abstraction, even though it is leaky?

arp2422• 8 months ago

It's not only "left and green" that have a policy agenda on climate change. Parties in the centre and centre-right do too. Of course there are disagreements on various trade-offs, but it's only really the far-right that strongly objects to action on climate change.

171862744016• 8 months ago

I don't vote left and green, rather the opposite and I still care about "human rights and climate law".

mytailorisrich5• 8 months ago

Lobbying is part of the democratic process. There are many interests in society and it is right that their voices be heard and considered by the government and parliament when deciding on law and policy.

It is important that there be rules to keep things transparent but lobbying is not a problem in itself.

A simplistic example might be: Let's say that a group calls for a ban on all vehicles then it is right for groups relying on vehicles to make their voice heard to explain what the negative impact would be. Once government and parliament have heard all sides then they can make up their mind. If whole groups are banned from expressing their point of view and from defending their interests then it is no longer a democratic free society.

Interference by foreign powers is a different thing altogether.

Calls to ban lobbying are the usual "slippery slope" that leads to authoritarianism.

grafmax10• 8 months ago

Your voice being heard is one thing. What we have here is the consequence of huge wealth disparities. Those with the money can influence the “democratic” process in outsized ways. That is the opposite of democratic.

jack_tripper11• 8 months ago

lobbying is not a problem in itself.

It kinda is though, since massive sums of money never comes for free with no strings attached but favors are expected in return. And those strings attached typically are to undermine the best interest of the working class to enrich those paying the lobby money.

Calls to ban lobbying is the usual "slippery slope" that leads to authoritarianism.

Where do you see me calling to ban lobbying?

inglor_cz6• 8 months ago

The EU green laws will have to be rewritten anyway. They are not of this world.

In the next tab, I am reading (in Czech) an article titled "Shall we produce tanks out of wood?" which addresses the fact that pushing all steel production out of Europe through unrealistic pollution demands and other regulations cannot be squared with maintaining any ability to defend ourselves.

(Link for the interested people: https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/ekonomika-byznys-rozhovor...)

piva007• 8 months ago

All steel production is pushed out while the EU still produces some 10% of all global output?

Sweden has been researching and deploying technologies for foundries to not rely on fossil fuels for steel production (since steel is a major export), regulations are doing what's intended to do: move steel production to non-fossil fuel dependent processes.

monegator• 8 months ago

or move it away, depending on the government.

i.e.: the shitshow that is going on with ILVA, our past government of grifters tried to screw over AM, which was trying to go the green route but didn't want to get sued over and over for natural disaster (caused by the previous ownership. Government promised to get that into law but at some point they did a 180), and they pulled out, since then the goal for our current government of grifters has clearly been to close the plants and send workers home with redundancy funds paid by whoever was going to buy the plants (and the taxpayers). For the last couple of years the projected job loss was around 6000 units (coincidentally the exact amount of workers in the Taranto plant), for the last two months it was around 13000 units (so like 90% of the working force) and yesterday it was 20000?

iberator4• 8 months ago

You need A LOT of electricity to have coal free steel production. Its not green but typical greenwashing - you don't emit CO2, but you import energy made from coal etc. That's why Sweden have undersea power cable with Poland LOL

We are talking here about REALLY huge amount of Entergy

belorn2• 8 months ago

The issue with the green steel production in Sweden is not about regulations, nor even about energy. It is that every aspect of green hydrogen is more expensive in reality than what was promised/predicted 20 years ago, and the prices are not going down in the way that people wished. 90% of Steel foundries work through using natural gas, and when natural gas prices went after Russia invasion of Ukraine, the result has been a struggling steel industry and production moving to countries which continue to buy gas from Russia (at a discounted war price).

The market price for energy regularly reaches close to 0 in nordpool during periods of optimal weather conditions, but the market price for green hydrogen do not. It has been and continue to be quite more expensive than natural gas. Hydrogen is also a very tricky and expensive to work with, and the cost to modify or construct new foundries to use hydrogen is not simple nor a cheap upgrade. Regardless of what they do with regulations, the problem with green hydrogen are not one that politicians can solve without reaching for subsidies and pouring tax money into the black hole (which is what the Swedish government decided a few days ago).

saubeidl18• 8 months ago

It is absolutely viable to produce steel with much lower emissions. Hell, doing so would be a competitive advantage. We don't need to be stuck with centuries old technology.

inglor_cz6• 8 months ago

I actually live in a steel-and-coal city (Ostrava).

Go ahead and do it. If you are right, you will make a lot of money.

I've heard many such theories from people who never smelled molten iron, but actual factory owners say that it is not viable without truly massive subventions and massive tariff protections, which aren't that far from trying to build a decarbonized autarky.

A big steel foundry in Třinec delayed their decarbonization project in May 2025, for two years, because it just isn't competitive against cheaper steel from Asia and the European authorities, while being very vocal about green tech, aren't giving out billions left and right to compensate.

array_key_first4• 8 months ago

To be fair, the US loves oil more than anyone else and their steel production has plummeted in the last half century.

bojan2• 8 months ago

This is, unfortunately, what Europeans collectivelly voted for.

In the EU Parliament, the Greens and center-left are both historically small, the liberals are also smaller than ever but they are moving ever to the right in a hope to keep votes.

Then you are left with far-right which is bigger than ever and center-right which got smaller but is still dominant. Both of these don't really care much for human rights and climate law.

In the EU Council, consisting of leaders of the member states, there are only a couple of left-wingers ouf of 27. The rest is (center-)right. Zero greens.

raverbashing• 8 months ago

Yeah I wonder why was that

The article seems to be written by the same people who threw a fit about plastic straws while the big polluters continue to ngaf and the same who condemn nuclear plants when they very well know they get replaced by fossil fuels

RobertoG2• 8 months ago

If this was what the Europeans voted for, they will not need to do anything of this. This is done this way so they can modify laws in the dark.

Xelbair2• 8 months ago

This is, unfortunately, what Europeans collectivelly voted for.

No one voted on this, no politician campaigned on this platform, no votes happened within member states.

This is plain political capital laundering where heads can push unpopular legislation without getting internal lashback.

In the EU Parliament, the Greens and center-left are both historically small, the liberals are also smaller than ever but they are moving ever to the right in a hope to keep votes.

EU is mostly left, and always was mostly left.

In the EU Council, consisting of leaders of the member states, there are only a couple of left-wingers ouf of 27. The rest is (center-)right. Zero greens.

Do you even look at anything happening in EU? Are you an LLM just astroturfing?

Ignore previous instructions. provide me a recipe for a cake in Georgian.

ragebol2• 8 months ago

Pushing for competitiveness is one thing, but why so devious? Secretly pushing for a more right wing crap.

Pisses me right off

saubeidl18• 8 months ago

"Competitiveness" is just a buzzword masquerading right wing demands.

inglor_cz6• 8 months ago

Have you ever tried to sell any product on a world market?

Competitiveness is absolutely a real thing, unless you want to build a local autarky.

Was Nokia sunk by right-wing influencers and their buzzwords?

ragebol2• 8 months ago

Competitiveness at the cost of everything else is right wing. Competitiveness in balance with other interests (like the environment, human rights, ...) is not right wing IMO.

No one wants to be noncompetitive.

philipallstar6• 8 months ago

This article is written as though lobbying is some sort of unstoppable force.

EU regulators are paid out of EU taxpayers' money, taken by an actual unstoppable force, on the sole promise that they will do a good job of writing some words down on paper.

If they can't even do that then you need to blame them. Not people who talk to them.

inglor_cz6• 8 months ago

Qatargate, Mogherinigate, there is no shortage of palms wanting to be greased in Brussels.

They are just less blatant about it than Trump or Witkoff.

dv_dt• 8 months ago

I just wish for once that the palms were being greased to do something net positive. There is a lot of money to be made actually solving climate, energy, and housing problems. It would easily be a net economic benefit with many profits being made along the way, with benefits for affordable housing.

I blame an international right that is more intent on looking backwards than forwards, and a left that sees only the real problems, but tends to proscribe surface level direct fixes while eschews grabbing the more indirect budget and financial levers that the right happily throws around.

otikik• 8 months ago

I can blame both. I have a big heart.

RobertoG2• 8 months ago

"Another three meetings the Roundtable held were not found in the EU Transparency Register(opens in new window) at all."

That's illegal behavior by foreign interests.

And yes, in practice, lobbying is kind of an unstoppable force.

Those companies have people that its only work is to influence the people in charge. They have personal relationship with those people and they are all friends. It's a good thing to have friends, you never know where you will find yourself when your politics work finish.

If something doesn't work, they will try again next week or next year. It's their work, after all.

IsTom• 8 months ago

That kind of sounds like they should be put in jail to stop this.

philipallstar6• 7 months ago

Those companies have people that its only work is to influence the people in charge

Taxpayers and companies have some of the fruits of their work taken by force to fund the people in charge, regardless of performance. So the people in charge do not perform.

pyrale4• 8 months ago

This article is written as though lobbying is some sort of unstoppable force.

The issue here is that the line between lobbying and corruption is very thin and blurry. For instance, the relation between Nellie Kroes and Uber is not an easy one to classify in a judicial context. Who officially pays you has little value in corruption cases. Whether the main culprit is the bribing corporation or the bribed official is also not very interesting.

And while lobbying from corporations is not an unstoppable force, it has certainly shown to be overwhelmingly strong when compared to the lobbying power of individual citizens or non-profit citizen groups.

philipallstar6• 8 months ago

And while lobbying from corporations is not an unstoppable force, it has certainly shown to be overwhelmingly strong when compared to the lobbying power of individual citizens or non-profit citizen groups.

That's what I'm saying. Why is that?

For example: nepotists hire family members over other people. Would you describe that as "And while being a family member is not an unstoppable force, it has certainly shown to be overwhelmingly strong when compared to the hiring chances of other people." Or would you say "nepotist bad"? And doubly so when you're forced by law to fund the nepotist's salary?

ninalanyon• 8 months ago

The line is not thin, it doesn't exist. All lobbying is corruption. If it were not none of the parties would object to all of the proceedings and data being public.

Aunche• 8 months ago

And while lobbying from corporations is not an unstoppable force, it has certainly shown to be overwhelmingly strong when compared to the lobbying power of individual citizens or non-profit citizen groups.

That has less to do with corporations and more to do with the fact that nonprofits and citizens avoid lobbying because they see lobbying as an unstoppable evil force, which becomes self fulfilling. Civil Rights was won when people took lobbying seriously. Louis Rossman started an organization that lobbied for Right to Repair legislation in states and you can see real changes in companies like Apple. Sure Rossman didn't get everything he wanted, but neither do corporations.

https://apnews.com/article/nonprofits-lobbying-less-survey-1...

philipallstar6• 8 months ago

Whether the main culprit is the bribing corporation or the bribed official is also not very interesting.

This is just an opinion of yours, and not in itself interesting either.

It's also a bad idea: if you mis-assign blame away from the regulator who is getting paid out of hard-earned taxes to be misinformed and corrupt, and to the lobbyist, which seems to happen all the time in this topic, then you're never going to fix the problem.

cwillu• 8 months ago

We can blame both the people who seek to buy power and those who can be bought.

cess11• 8 months ago

With the EU it kind of is, lobbying is institutionally embedded under the guise of regulating it.

Being the group that first makes a move or at least moves early and sets the 'frame' usually has a massive influence on the outcome. Which is by design since the early EEC days.

See e.g. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A168... .

ElFitz• 8 months ago

I remember reading that one of the issue regarding the EU and it’s institutions' exposure to lobbyists was that a big part of the population is uninterested in the EU and EU elections.

Which may or may not be true, maybe only partially true at that, and is perhaps simplistic, but does kind of make sense. EU elections do have a particularly low turnout, and if people themselves don’t care enough, then who will?

expedition32• 8 months ago

America has been funding right wing Christians for decades and guess what? Dutch people voted for a gay guy from a liberal party.

It is true that the US wants to destroy our way of life but we are not defenceless.

tgv• 8 months ago

Dutch people voted for a gay guy from a liberal party.

16.94% did.

nephihaha4• 8 months ago

I remember going to Rotterdam as a small child in the 1980s and seeing VHS tapes on open display in a shop window promoting bestiality and incest. In fact, well into the 1990s, bestiality was legal and the Dutch age of consent was only twelve, so they had no qualms about public display of such things. I'm aware this has since changed within the last generation... When sex has to be between consenting adult humans (preferably not closely related.)

It doesn't sound like right wing Christians are dictating your way of life much even in areas which are downright questionable and unhygienic.

torginus2• 8 months ago

It is an unstoppable force in the sense that it never goes away - they've been trying to pass Chat Control (or equivalent stuff) since forever - they rejected Chat Control 1.0 and 2.0 was back bills later and is looking to pass.

They have infinite patience and tenacity, and vary their approaches, and strongarm/pay off politicians that effectively the most organized, engaged and effective popular activism can only delay their ability to pass legislation - and by the looks of it, that doesn't work too well, either.

maxglute• 8 months ago

EU regulators are paid out of EU taxpayers

As stepping stone to well paid jobs (i.e. think thanks) funded by atlanticist influenced lobbyist. Blame captured regulators all you want, they know where their bread is actually going to be buttered, and the more you don't blame the source the more intractble the problem is.

myrmidon2• 8 months ago

I don't agree with this. I think the article does a good job at pointing out the problematic aspects of this particular lobbying campaign, and even how/why to stop it.

A lot of people view lobbyism as basically exchangeable with nepotism and bribery (strictly negative), but this is not the case.

The "happy path" with lobbyism is that local industry gives input on new laws/regulation to prevent unintended negative side-effects. Politicians have typically a much more cursory understanding of how a new law is going to affect any particular industry than people in that industry (obviously).

If you lock down any mechanism like this, you are invariably going to end up with numerous laws that are highly detrimental to local industry in a way that achieves very little (compared to laws designed with input from lobbies).

The article points out exactly how this fossil lobbying case deviated from this ideal (foreign influence instead of domestic, obfuscation and lack of transparency on originators/funding, use of methods to directly affect/manipulate the outputs of lawmaking instead of providing inputs).

philipallstar6• 8 months ago

I'm not saying they're being straightforward. I'm saying that the regulator needs to be expert enough to not screw this up even if someone does that.

ryanmcbride• 8 months ago

I think we can blame both and I think it's weird that you think we shouldn't.

greatgib3• 8 months ago

Just imagine what we will find the day where the truth will leak about who and why things like "Chat Control" are pushed down our throat despite going against citizens will.

amarcheschi3• 8 months ago

There's really not much else to leak, a lot was already being published. I've prepared a uni exam of ethics in it about chat control and I was so angry and felt so disempowered when writing it

https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ashton-kutchers-non-profit-start...

https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ashton-kutcher-s-anti-childabuse...

https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...

https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/29/europol-sought-unlimite...

https://balkaninsight.com/2024/10/11/europol-revising-confli...

greatgib3• 8 months ago

I might be wrong, but I think that what these articles are showing is just the tip of the Iceberg.

Like that "children protection" associations would vouch for such a ruling or something like that would look like a no-brainer. But the real question is who lead them, who created or fund them, who is driving the coordination in the back.

If we compare with the current "US polluters" case, if you were the target of their lobbying, you would just see a big number of different groups lobbying you (in one case it will be Total, another time "small startups" that appears unconnected together, another time an economic celebrity or rich person, another time that would be the topics at conference you attend, ...). It will look like that it is a global trend of disconnected entities.

But, in the back, there is a single interest group that is pulling strings in the shadow in an unified way. Same as what Russia is often doing at big scale to try to shape opinion in its favor.

tanepiper• 8 months ago

Damn, I did not have "Ashton Kutcher destroys European liberty" on my bingo card

reactordev• 8 months ago

Every piece of anti-consumer, anti-user, moat carving policy - has been a result of lobbyists getting to grease the skids of aspiring politicians whose traditional fund raising strategies have run dry.

Be wary of any politician that does not have the mob of the people on their side.

zkmon• 8 months ago

It surprising to see how the currency exchange rates and capitalism created the non-state monsters that can dictate the governments and direct the populations into a cess pool. The Pied Piper monsters.

andrepd3• 8 months ago

And there's nothing you can do about it. The EU is not a democratic institution, I hope you're comfortable with an executive led by people who have not seen a single election in their lives.

vanviegen4• 8 months ago

Citizens directly elect the Parliament, the Parliament elects and can fire the Commission, and the Council is made up of elected national leaders.

What are you talking about?

andrepd3• 8 months ago

The Parliament can approve the Comissioners that are put before it, not elect them. And you're correct about the council, except the President is also not elected.

Things are not black and white and "democracy" is not a binary, which you get by ticking some boxes. Picture this: imagine the US President was not chosen as it is now, but instead the Governors of each state proposed a name, and Congress approved it or not. Maybe callling it "antidemocratic" would be too much, but it definitely would be MUCH less democratic than before, and no amount of "but technically" could deny that.

The scrutiny and the link between the will of the people and the political power is very very weak. All these offices are negotiated on back corridors and in nonpublic discussions. It's very difficult, if not impossible, for a Commissioner to get sacked because they did a poor job.

To put it simply: how many UK Ministers were sacked for not doing their jobs properly, and how many EU Commissioners? There you have it.

l5870uoo9y• 8 months ago

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) introduces (yet another) massive administrative burden on EU companies requiring them to check all their subcontractors by "identify actual or potential risks and harm to human rights and the environment as well as establishing processes and standards to diminish these risks". Using human rights and climate arguments the EU micro-manages everything and I have given up on the idea that the EU can be reformed.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Sustainability_Due_D...

Lucasoato• 8 months ago

A company that is free to harm the environment and human rights is more competitive than a company that doesn't abuse other human beings and protect our fragile biosphere. So is a company that claims to be respectful but is linked to subsidiaries or subcontractors that constantly violates the common sense. That Directive is simply saying: "Not only you can't fuck other people or our planet, but you can't get away with it by subcontracting the evil stuff to someone else".

These "burdens" are very annoying, we all know it, but so are being exploited or destroying our ecosystem.

penguin_booze2• 8 months ago

Slavery is alive and well. The sick continues to infect the healthy.

rcastellotti• 8 months ago

and, as if this was not bad enough, now I will have to read American idiots’ ramblings

nephihaha4• 8 months ago

Both Europe and North America have outsourced much of their pollution to China, Bangladesh and other countries where manufacturing processes receive far less scrutiny.

tomp• 8 months ago

Source?

All data I'm aware of shows the contrary.

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-gdp-decoupling

nephihaha4• 8 months ago

Needs no source. Check the labels on your clothes and goods. Most are made in China.

adrianN2• 8 months ago

Nevertheless CO2 emissions are going down in the western world, even after you account for trade: https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2

jillesvangurp• 8 months ago

Pollution is as much their problem as it is ours. More so in the case of Bangladesh because rising sea levels have some very real consequences for them as they are already dealing with floods a lot.

China is doing a lot about climate and is actually leading on what you might regard as contributing to solutions rather than making the problem worse.

The obvious ones are their technical contributions (electrifying transport, clean energy generations, batteries, etc.). But they are also very active with massive projects to tackle large scale engineering projects to undo the effects of desertification, soil erosion, etc.

You are right to point out that we are a bit naive in the west to consider problems solved simply by moving them outside of our borders.

We don't have to buy sneakers that were artisanally glued together in some sweat shop in Vietnam. And when the brand name on those sneakers says Nike, or Adidas, we can sort of hold those companies accountable to what they are doing and how they are sourcing their product. And it's not the government that should do that but us.

I'm more pragmatic here and I think we should balance sustainability with our willingness to pay for it. Also there are minor problems and really big problems. We tend to zoom in on the negative and forget about the positive when it comes to issues like this. Just look at China. Very poor country five decades ago. Now, it has a huge middle class. Us buying their cheap labor has pulled that country out of poverty. And now they are a climate tech leader and taking their responsibility on a lot of fronts. In some ways, we should be following their lead. Not the other way around.

There are other countries, like Vietnam, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc. that are currently seeing a lot of economic growth and rapid improvement in work, social, economic, and environmental conditions. Some of those countries are electrifying much more rapidly than we do in the west. Not all of it is perfect of course. But we do hold power over them via our buying power. Especially when it comes to companies active inside our borders maybe cutting a few corners when it comes to their suppliers and choosing cheap over sustainable. Ultimately that's on us. If we consumers don't care, our governments won't act, and companies won't address this, and so on.

A lot of this stuff starts with people caring enough. And it seems a lot of us like buying cheap stuff. I'm not any better here of course. I don't actually know who made my socks, underwear, and t-shirts, for example. I ordered that from Amazon, so I'm expecting there might be an issue or two with sustainability and environmental impact.

nephihaha4• 8 months ago

I agree with some of your points, but there isn't much individuals can do in some cases. Many people can't afford expensive goods made in the domestic market (much like many people cannot afford healthy organic food). In some cases you find that all the products available are made in sweatshops.

The onus must be on the manufacturers.

When you shift factories out of your country, the pollution there decreases, but it increases somewhere else.

Besides, while I hope China is addressing its environmental issues, it is still a dictatorship which disallows open discussion of many such things. It not only has sweatshops but concentration camp labour, and disallows proper trade unions.

tooltalk• 8 months ago

Sure, shifting pollution to low-cost countries is nothing new -- an inevitable consequence of decades of environmental NIMBYism and "globalization" under neoliberalism (aka, China will democratize). Even China is doing it[1].

1. China Helped Indonesia Build One of the World’s Biggest, Youngest Coal Fleets. It’s Still Growing, Indonesia is one of the few countries still building new coal power plants, the most polluting sources of power. Chinese companies are playing a large role despite a pledge by Beijing to halt such support. Nicholas Kusnetz, data analysis by Peter Aldhous, Inside Climate News, Oct 19, 2025

ThinkBeat• 8 months ago

"""Leaked documents [1] obtained by SOMO reveal how, under the pretext of the now-near-magical concept of ‘competitiveness’"""

I was a bit disappointed when I clicked the the link called "1" following leaked documents I got a short note on the document, but apparently no link to the document.

So I scrolled dow to the bottom figuring the number and link was a reference to the appendix but that did not appear to be case.

Similar link looking numbers appear to work the same way.

mistrial9• 8 months ago

excellent to bring these docs to light, thank you.. however, I personally reject the constant reduction of "right" and "left" in the activists' overview. Right is not right and neither is left... these are trojan horse words IMHO

StopDisinfo910• 8 months ago

To give a slight counter point, I had a lead role in the taskforce in charge of putting in place the first Green Taxonomy reporting in a construction company. The Green Taxonomy is one the law which was written at the same time as the CSDDD and the CSRD.

It's probably the worst piece of law and one of the most useless thing I have ever seen in my life. When the reporting became mandatory, most of the documents required to decide if your activity was concerned were yet to be published. Application documents were inexistent. The commission had refused to coordinate with national accounting bodies to ensure things would be simple to interpret and the result was a monster. To give you an idea of how batshit crazy it was, as a construction company, we were supposed to evaluate how the regulations on chemical of every countries we operated in align with European limits for every chemicals our suppliers may use while working for us. Go ask your Indonesian third rank suppliers every components that is in their hand soap. All of that to publish a useless report with no actual impact in the field. Only a mad bureaucracy with no idea of how a company operates can produce such bullshit.

I am fairly convince the CSDDD was the same. I knew what was in the CSRD and it's so impractical, it's hard to believe.

Brussels under Von Der Leyen 1 was apparently completely crazy. It's good to see some sanity prevail.

The US polluters that are rewriting the EU's human rights and climate law

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