The European Commission should minimise meetings with the tobacco industry, publicise and fully minute them.
A common theme of much of my work as European ombudsman has involved examining the ways in which influence is wielded within the administration of the European Union. As the second largest lobbying centre in the world, Brussels plays host to a veritable army of companies, industry groups and organisations, all seeking to leave their mark on EU legislation.
Lobbyists tend to be laser-focused on how they can influence EU rules to improve the bottom lines of the companies they represent, but in doing so they often ignore the wider costs to society. More than once, I have seen how sophisticated and well-financed lobbying has watered down initially ambitious proposals in diverse areas: environmental protection, consumer rights, food labelling and more.
Lives put at risk
When it comes to certain topics, such as public health, unchecked industry lobbying can be particularly dangerous. Over the long run, attenuated regulations put lives at risk and add additional strain to our already overburdened healthcare systems.
Tobacco offers a textbook example where it is difficult to square the aims of industry with the public good. If it wants to make money, the tobacco industry relies on people continuing to smoke, but smoking is always dangerous and very often deadly. According to the European Commission, tobacco use is the most significant cause of premature death in the EU, responsible for cutting short the lives of nearly 700,000 Europeans every single year.
Nor is the damage limited to smokers, as smoke from cigarettes and other tobacco products pollutes the air breathed by non-smokers. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that, every year, the deaths of 1.3 million people worldwide, including 65,000 children, are due to illnesses related to second-hand smoke.
Given these alarming statistics, and the fact that all deaths caused by smoking are preventable, there should be a strong desire not only to curb global tobacco use but also to protect public decision-making from the harmful effects of tobacco lobbying. The WHO’s landmark Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) recognises the serious threat posed by industry lobbying to the development and implementation of effective policies to limit smoking. It obliges signatories, which include the EU and all its member states, to protect their public-health policies from the interests of tobacco manufactures, importers and distributors, as well as outside lobbyists working on their behalf.
Inappropriate influence
In practice, governments should limit all interaction with the tobacco industry to that which is strictly necessary to ensure effective regulation. Where meetings with tobacco lobbyists are required, they must be conducted as transparently as possible. This includes informing the public that meetings have taken place and taking comprehensive minutes.
It sounds relatively straightforward but meeting these commitments requires constant vigilance on the part of public administrations. The industry has the resources to hire many talented individuals and employ complex strategies to influence rules and regulations. When tobacco lobbyists find access to one government department blocked or hindered, they will often seek to sway policy by way of another, more amenable to their arguments.
Moreover, regulation that affects the tobacco industry or where the industry has a vested interest is not only written by health departments: it is likewise the responsibility of those handling trade, taxation, agriculture, business and much more. We must therefore defend the entirety of public decision-making from inappropriate influence on its part. This means all government departments and all staff, while various oversight and enforcement agencies may be implicated.
Meetings undocumented
As European ombudsman, I have twice examined what measures the commission takes to ensure its interactions with the tobacco industry are transparent and in compliance with its commitments under the FCTC. In my first inquiry, in 2016, I commended the commission’s health department for proactively making public the existence and minutes of all its interactions with the industry, irrespective of the seniority of staff involved.
Unfortunately, the commission refused to apply the same high standards across the board, meaning all of its other departments and services only systematically documented meetings concerning the most senior officials. Key staff such as policy officers, usually responsible for writing and researching legislation, were not obliged to document any meetings with tobacco-industry representatives. Given that decision-makers rely on the expertise and input of those who work for them, I find it baffling that the commission should believe meetings between these staff and tobacco lobbyists are not covered by its transparency commitments.
Since that time, the commission’s taxation and customs department has also implemented a proactive transparency policy for all staff interactions with tobacco lobbyists. This is a welcome development, but my most recent inquiry into the issue, concluded late last year, showed that the commission continued to refuse to ensure that all staff across all departments were subject to the necessary transparency standards. This is despite the fact that other departments, including trade, the internal market, environment and transport, as well as the EU’s Anti-Fraud Office, have held meetings with tobacco lobbyists within the last few years.
Non-existent minutes
My inquiry also showed that minutes do not seem to exist for a number of recent, documented meetings with tobacco lobbyists. And some of those that do fail to provide a meaningful account of what was discussed—offering only a short summary of the general topic and statements made by commission staff.
Good record-keeping is a precondition of transparency. It allows citizens and organisations to verify that the EU administration is living up to its commitments. In that sense, it is particularly disappointing that the commission is not keeping comprehensive minutes of all its meetings with tobacco-interest representatives.
These findings make clear that more transparency is needed, but it is important to recognise that openness alone will not fully insulate tobacco-control policies from the effects of industry lobbying. Meetings with tobacco lobbyists must be kept to the strict minimum required. Despite this, my inquiry found that the commission had no specific procedure or rules for assessing whether individual meetings with representatives of the tobacco industry were needed in the first place. These should be developed and applied consistently across all the commission’s departments and services.
On a more positive note, the commission did say it would now be further assessing its exposure to lobbying by the tobacco industry. I have asked it to communicate the concerns I raised in my inquiry to its senior staff and to inform me later this year of the progress it has made.
Wake-up call
My findings should serve as a wake-up call for the commission when it comes to limiting the malign effects of tobacco lobbying on public policy. This issue goes beyond the general high standards of transparency and accountability citizens rightly expect from their public officials—it concerns the future wellbeing and even the lives of many Europeans.
If the EU administration is serious about protecting people from the dangerous effects of tobacco use, it must ensure it has comprehensive practices in place to defend its decision-making from undue influence.
Emily O'Reilly is the European ombudsman.