Presented by Sanofi.

By LILI BAYER

With thanks to Cory Bennett, Louise Guillot and Barbara Moens

PRESENTED BY

 

Tips, tales, traumas to the POLITICO Brussels Team at @liliebayer or [email protected] | View in your browser

Good afternoon and welcome back to EU Influence.

LOBBYING THE EU

RULE-OF-LAW FIGHT: The EU’s top court on Wednesday ruled that Brussels can cut funds to countries experiencing rule-of-law problems, rejecting a legal challenge from Poland and Hungary. All eyes are now on the European Commission as pressure mounts for it to act.

The persuasion campaign on Wednesday was strongest among civil society groups and at the European Parliament.

“Hungary and Poland have been rapidly backsliding on media freedom, independence of judges, the right to protest, and other fundamental tenets of the rule of law,” said Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty International’s EU office. “The EU cannot afford to delay action on Poland and Hungary’s shockingly poor standards of rule of law. Judges, journalists, activists, people in Hungary and Poland cannot wait.”

Balázs Dénes, executive director at Liberties, said his group wanted “the Commission to trigger the mechanism with no delay.”

**A message from Sanofi: Europe’s research-based pharmaceutical industry employs 830,000 people, with an investment of over 36 billion euros. It is time for the health sector to play its part, so that Europe can become even more competitive in an increasingly fierce global market. Find out more here.**

“The EU now has an effective tool against authoritarians, who haven’t been moved by legal cases or political pressure before, but are now scared by the prospect of losing EU money. We’ve seen this from the way Poland and Hungary have opposed the mechanism and how Poland has shown signs it may back down over recent attacks on its courts,” he said.

EU-AFRICA TIES IN FOCUS: As European and African leaders met in Brussels this week for a two-day summit, civil society groups bluntly reminded leaders that they exist — and should be heard.

Listen to us, please: “It is highly regrettable that in the framework of their partnership, the EU and [African Union] have failed to reach out to civil society organizations until the very last moment, underscoring the lack of inclusivity and transparency of this process,” dozens of civil society groups wrote in a joint statement to heads of state and government attending the summit. “You have excluded the voices of the millions of people who will be directly affected by the decisions you take.”

Asks: “The EU and AU should work to transcend the traditional colonial and post-colonial, North-South, donor-recipient framework within which relations have thus far been established,” the groups said. That meant reviewing existing relationships for trade, debt and “illicit financial flows.” Currently, they argued, these relations simply “exacerbate” rather than improve “equity of international governance.”

FOREIGN SUBSIDIES DEBATE: The EU’s competition ministers next week will discuss an upcoming foreign subsidies instrument, according to a French EU presidency note. Paris hopes to reach an agreement on the issue during its rotating presidency, which runs through June.

Refresher: The upcoming instrument aims to address potential distortive effects of foreign subsidies in the EU’s single market, especially as subsidies granted by EU countries are subject to close scrutiny, writes my colleague Barbara Moens. It’s part of the EU’s broader industrial strategy and the buildup of the EU’s trade defense arsenal.

Businesses fear legal uncertainty: A wide range of organizations, representing businesses in non-EU countries such as the U.S., Australia, Japan, India and South Korea, expressed their fears Tuesday over the regulation’s clarity. The groups are particularly concerned about what they describe as legal uncertainty that may reduce investment. “Companies may fear that the wide range of support measures received in third countries globally could not be accounted for in full compliance, and this could expose them to high fines,” they said in a joint statement. 

EU TRANSPARENCY

AGRI QUESTIONS: European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly is looking into whether lobbying over one of the EU’s flagship funding programs, the Common Agricultural Policy, is balanced and transparent.

“The public needs to be reassured that upcoming decisions related to climate action and environmental protection are not unduly influenced by specific interests,” O’Reilly wrote in a letter to von der Leyen. “I therefore think it would be helpful if the Commission would explain how it is ensuring transparency and appropriate stakeholder engagement in relation to the CAP.”

She asked specifically for information about how the Commission engages with interest groups and for information on the transparency surrounding the approval of each country’s plan and the disbursement of funds.

AROUND THE CONTINENT

NEW TIMBER INDUSTRY LOBBY OKS STRATEGY: The European Timber Industries Confederation has adopted its 2022-2024 strategy, which previews two key goals: One, pushing for “a larger and concrete insert” of the timber industry into the Commission’s agenda; and two, promoting the sector’s contribution to reducing CO2 emissions, reports my colleague Louise Guillot. The industry group, which lobbies for companies along the timber production chain, was launched last year.

Certification: The organization will also work on establishing its certification platform for wood-based products, which aims “to validate the sustainability of all the processing phases converting the raw material into a finished product.”

Who’s in it? Members of ETIC include EU and non-EU companies, like Belgium’s EU-Timber BV, France’s Forêt Investissement and SNCF Réseau, as well as the Portuguese Association of Wood and Furniture Industries and the U.S. Treated Wood Council. Vítor Manuel Poças is the industry association’s chairman, while Patrizio Antonicoli acts as director general.

INFLUENCERS

RIP: Radomír Boháč, Slovakia’s ambassador to the OSCE, died earlier this week. 

Dariusz Dybka has joined Edelman to lead the company’s sustainability team in Brussels.

Samuel Flückiger is joining thyssenkrupp Steel as head of EU climate policy.

Fourtold has appointed James Holtum as senior adviser and head of political engagement. He previously worked at Rasmussen Global.

DIGITALEUROPE has welcomed numerous new hires. Martin Chapman is the new director for technical policy and standards. Normunds Egle is now senior manager for member state outreach. Samia Fitouri is senior communications manager, while Jean-Dominique Meunier is director for member state outreach. Michele Calabrò is the new senior manager for digital health policy and Béatrice Ericson is officer for privacy & security policy.

**A message from Sanofi: In EU health care, it is important we start thinking beyond the context of the pandemic, towards a post-COVID-19 future. Many current strategies are solely focused on COVID-19 recovery, but often do not look beyond this. This year, France takes the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, and it serves as an opportunity to bring an ambitious agenda for Europe’s strategic autonomy with regards to health. One element of this is sharing and better utilizing health data.  Better data analysis can drive treatment development, leading to personalized therapies that will improve patient care and significantly impact survival rates. Progress in advancing a European Health Data Space could result in significantly improved clinical trials at an EU level. However, current common EU health data standards and are still lacking substantially. Find out more about how a European health data space could be key to Europe’s post-COVID landscape.**

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