POLLUTERS MEET THEIR MATCH 🎾

The EEB’s Meta Newsletter is coming to an end. It’s been quite a year, and over the past months, we’ve done our best to bring you the freshest updates on EU environmental policy and beyond. So, before anything else: thank you for reading, for your kind messages, and for being part of this community that believes in a future where people and nature thrive together. You made this worth doing every week, but all good things must come to an end…   

Nahhh, just kidding.  

We’re just taking a well-deserved summer break in August! In September, we’ll be back in your inbox with a brand new name and a fresh look – but with the same sharp take on the developments shaping our shared future. So, before you switch on that out-of-office and head off on your summer vacation, grab an iced coffee and enjoy one last read.

STORIES WITHOUT BORDERS 

🎉 WORLD COURT’S HISTORIC CLIMATE DECISION 

YIPPEE! – In a landmark move this week, the International Court of Justice confirmed that states have clear legal obligations under international law to prevent climate harm, not only through their own actions but also by regulating private actors like fossil fuel companies. This milestone is the result of a six-year campaign launched by 27 Pacific Island students, a youth-led effort that brought the world’s highest court into the fight for climate justice. 

MAKE EM PAY – The Court’s opinion is grounded in the common-sense application of longstanding international legal norms. Polluters have spent the decade since the Paris Agreement doing their best to bend or misinterpret these norms to their benefit, and now the ICJ has decisively burst their bubble. Crucially, the court affirmed that failure to act in line with climate science may amount to “an internationally wrongful act”, opening powerful new legal avenues for accountability. 

The court also reaffirmed that 1.5°C is the true target of the Paris Agreement, not the weaker “well below 2°C” that big polluters would have us believe. It also confirmed that it is scientifically possible to determine each state’s contribution to global emissions. 

A BLUEPRINT FOR THE FUTURE – This opinion marks a seismic shift in international climate law and arms NGOs, litigators, and policymakers with bold new tools to hold governments and polluters accountable, protecting the rights of present and future generations. 

🤝 GLOBAL PLASTIC TREATY 

SEAL THE DEAL – Plastic pollution is now everywhere: in our environment, our food, our water, even inside our bodies. Without decisive cuts to plastic production, the problem will only escalate. The Global Plastic Treaty aims to reduce plastic pollution by establishing legally binding rules across the entire lifecycle of plastics. From 5–14 August, world leaders will meet in Geneva for what could be the final round of negotiations on this agreement. If successful, it could become one of the most impactful environmental agreements in decades. 

SLIDE INTO THEIR DMs – As a signatory of the Manifesto for a Future Free from Plastic Pollution, we’re demanding bold, global action, and you can help amplify the call. Use Break Free From Plastic’s tool to contact your ministers and urge them to support a strong, ambitious treaty. 

🫧 IN THE BRUSSELS BUBBLE

🪚 EU CHAINSAW MASSACRE 

Did someone say scissor-happy? This week, the European Commission launched an online consultation for its “environmental omnibus” proposal, which it claims will remove administrative burdens in waste and industrial emissions laws. But the real concern isn’t efficiency, it’s how the Commission is flying in the face of due process. 

DUE PROCESS? WHAT’S THAT? – “Omnibus” packages allow the Commission to amend parts of EU laws without reopening the full legislative files, a move that fast-tracks legislative change while sidestepping democratic safeguards. The current call for evidence is a case in point: it fails to clearly specify which laws are under review, leaving both stakeholders and institutions in the dark.

QUICK! BEFORE ANYONE SEES – The Commission is rushing these packages through so quickly that even EU institutions are struggling to keep up (let alone the rest of us!) On top of this, it claims to have consulted widely, but the process – including the cited online workshop – was anything but balanced. This isn’t real consultation, it’s citizenwashing.

DEREGULATION TSUNAMI – Under the guise of “simplification,” the Commission is pushing a wave of initiatives that amount to outright deregulation. We support smarter implementation, but what’s on the table goes far beyond that. Even the Commission’s own Environmental Implementation Review confirms the real issue is poor enforcement and not overregulation. These omnibus proposals add complexity and uncertainty, not clarity. 

BURNT OUT – It seems we’re not the only ones who’ve had enough of the omnibus madness. Behind closed doors, frustration is mounting among officials and lawmakers, many of whom are warning that this top-down approach risks undoing years of hard-earned progress and shifting the balance of power in Brussels in the process. 

YOUR MOVE – This all raises a strategic question for environmental organisations. Do we continue focusing on defending environmental standards directly, or do we shift toward demanding respect for proper process? Recent political developments have shifted the political winds away from environmental ambition, a difficult truth we may need to acknowledge. But even in that context, dismantling protections through opaque procedures and emergency-style tactics cannot be accepted. It must be exposed for what it is: an assault on both the environment and the democratic foundations of EU policymaking. 
 
💸 NO LIFE IN THE EU BUDGET 

ICYMI – Last week, the European Commission unveiled its proposal for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the EU’s long-term budget for 2028–2034, totalling over €1.8 trillion.

MAJOR RED FLAG – The LIFE Programme, the EU’s only dedicated funding tool for the environment and climate, has been quietly dismantled. Instead of strengthening it, the Commission plans to fold parts of LIFE into a vague new ‘European Competitiveness Fund’, shifting the focus toward short-term industrial priorities and putting crucial environmental progress, enforcement, and civil society support at risk. 

COINCIDENCE? WE THINK NOT – The disappearance of LIFE from the MFF lands just as civil society funding comes under coordinated political attack. Remember the so-called “NGO scandal”? It was debunked long ago as a smear campaign, but its damage lingers. A new documentary featuring the EEB exposes the playbook behind the story. Our Director for Nature, Health and Environment, Faustine Bas-Defossez, unpacks the wider effort to undermine NGOs and explains why defending civic space is more vital than ever. 

🚀 CAN’T FIGHT THE LAWS OF PHYSICS

WAKE-UP CALL – This Thursday marked World Overshoot Day, the date when humanity has officially used up all the natural resources the planet can regenerate in a year. And this year’s date, 24 July 2025, is the earliest ever recorded. This can’t just be another symbolic moment in the calendar, reminding us to go hug a tree. It needs to be a serious wake-up call. Now is the time to strengthen environmental protections, not stall them, and certainly not slash them.

🌎 GLOBAL ANTI-MINING DAY

BLACK AS COAL – This week’s World Day Against the Mining Industry comes as the EU races ahead with its Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), a flagship policy meant to secure the minerals needed for a clean energy transition. But behind the shiny promises, cracks are showing.

NOT LIKE THIS – The CRMA is fast-tracking mining projects not only across Europe but far beyond its borders, from Portugal’s Covas do Barroso and Sweden’s Sápmi region to Serbia, and Namibia, giving companies special privileges while watering down environmental safeguards, public participation, and transparency. These so-called “Strategic Projects” are threatening water sources, biodiversity, Indigenous rights, and traditional livelihoods. Communities on the frontlines are being sidelined, their consent bypassed, their concerns dismissed.  

The CRMA was meant to secure a green future, but if it tramples environmental law, ignores Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), and deepens extractivist harm, how can it do so? A just transition must be truly just, within and beyond EU borders. That means putting rights, participation, and sufficiency at the heart of the EU’s raw materials strategy, not letting them fall through the cracks. 

ON THAT NOTE – ‘REAL’ is a research project exploring how to ensure good lives for all within ecological limits, focusing on post-growth strategies like reducing inequality and rethinking economic models. If this sounds like something that can interest you, you can subscribe to their newsletter here.

🧠 THE DOPAMINE HIT 

• Pakistan’s solar surge is turning the energy system on its head. Read more here.

• Operation Greenshield just took place. With 350 coordinated raids in a campaign to protect the Amazon rainforest from illegal logging, mining and wildlife trafficking, resulting in 94 arrests and over 55 million euros in assets seized. Read more here.

• The Emsher River in Germany has transformed from the dirtiest river in Europe into a thriving waterway full of life thanks to a 5.5-million-euro project aimed at cleaning and restoring the ecosystem from industrial pollution. Read more here.

• In a win for environmental and public health, a Dutch court upheld a ban on pesticide-intensive lily farming near homes in Sevenum, exposing government failures to implement EU pesticide laws and reinforcing the need for stronger enforcement across Europe. Read more here.

• The Italian Supreme court just opened civil courts up to climate litigation on the basis that climate harms can be considered justiciable violations of fundamental rights. Read more here.

🍉 #SPEAKUPFORPAL3STINE

As more and more evidence of crimes against humanity and genocide in Palestine continues to pile up, this week we saw over two dozen countries, including 20 European nations as well as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, issue a joint statement demanding an immediate end to the violence in Gaza. They condemned the “inhumane killing of civilians” and the “drip feeding of aid,” asserting that Israel must comply with international humanitarian law. The signatories highlighted the “horrifying” suffering of Palestinians, criticising Israel’s aid model for fuelling instability and depriving civilians of basic human dignity. We stand with Palestine.

This week and in his speech on the eve of the National Day of Belgium, King Philippe became the first European monarch to condemn the atrocities taking place in Palestine, labelling them a “disgrace to humanity” and supporting the UN Secretary General to immediately put an end to this crisis. 

If you want to help, you can sign Oxfam’s letter to demand action from the Belgian government or donate to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. 

📢 ORGANISE 

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By: Roi Gomez. Special thanks to the EEB’s editorial team: Christian Skrivervik, Ben Snelson and Alberto Vela. Editor: Ruby Silk.