⛵ SOLIDARITY WITH THE GLOBAL SUMUD FLOTILLA
Earlier this week, while many of us slept, Israeli forces forcefully and illegally intercepted vessels and detained crew members of the Global Sumud Flotilla. The Flotilla was attempting to break Israel’s illegal blockade and to deliver essential humanitarian aid to the occupied Gaza Strip, amidst the ongoing genocide. It was made up of almost 40 vessels with a combined crew of around 500 people from across 44 countries, including Greta Thunberg as well as Members of the EU Parliament.
The entirely peaceful humanitarian mission has been simple: to deliver crucial aid to Palestinians who are being bombed, shot, tortured and starved while political leaders around the world have so far failed to stop the atrocities.
We stand behind the Flotilla and join the call that the crew of the intercepted vessels must be immediately and unconditionally released. “This interception is not just about blocking aid; it is a calculated act of intimidation intended to punish and silence critics of Israel’s genocide and its unlawful blockade on Gaza,” said Amnesty International’s leader Agnès Callamard.
EUROPEAN LEADERS MUST ACT – Earlier this week, the EEB outlined why this is everybody’s battle – respect for fundamental human rights and dignity, the rule of law and the delivery of justice, and the future of the planet we share. The EU cannot be a leader for climate and sustainability on the world stage while the right to life in Gaza is being denied. It is high time for our political leaders to act.
Speak up for Pal3stine 🍉🍉🍉
☄️ BOMBSHELL EU ENVIRONMENT REPORT
The European Environment Agency (EEA), an EU body that produces expert research and analysis on Europe’s climate and environmental trends, just launched one of its most significant and comprehensive publications ever: Europe’s environment 2025.
“The outlook for most environmental trends is concerning and poses major risks to Europe’s economic prosperity, security and quality of life.”
COULDN’T BE CLEARER – The takeaways, based on data across 38 countries, are frightening: nature hanging by a thread, badly polluted waters, and worsening impacts of climate change are proving to be Europe’s top challenges.
THE CALL TO ACTION – We urgently need proper (dedicated, binding, funded, implemented, enforced) policies to protect and restore Europe’s natural foundations: waters, wildlife, ecosystems – and at the same time, we need EU action to address a spiralling climate emergency. Europe’s health, economy, prosperity and future all depend on it.
This is not the time to lower our ambitions. Europe has the policies, the tools and a clear public mandate. Short-termism is not an option: delaying action is far costlier. Now is the moment to build a future where we can truly live well, within the limits of our planet. Here’s the good and the bad.
🟢 SOME CAUSE FOR SOFT APPLAUSE
EMISSIONS AND AIR – Progress has been made on cleaning up Europe’s air (though not everywhere), as well as on bringing down total greenhouse gas emissions. How? By reducing fossil fuel usage and doubling renewables since 2005!
CIRCULAR DESIGN, SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION & WASTE CIRCULARITY – EU legislation has been steadily adding circularity requirements to improve durability, repairability, upgradeability and recycled components to ever-more products. Good, but we’re still ploughing through (consuming) natural resources at a rate well above what our planet can sustain.
The report outlines some other achievements in the areas of tackling ozone-depleting substances and climate-harming F-gases, green employment, sustainable finance and innovation.
🔴 PLENTY OF WORK TO DO
🌿 NATURE IS UNDER ATTACK – 80% of EU ecosystems are in poor condition, 60-70% of soils are degraded, biodiversity is collapsing under the weight of unsustainable production and consumption, and precious, iconic wildlife has become the victim of growing, targeted attacks.
This week, we “drove” the voices of nearly 200,000 people directly to the EU Parliament, where we met Environment Commissioner Roswall to make it clear: It is not enough to hear us, you need to listen. Europeans love nature, we need nature, the EU has vital legislation to protect, preserve and restore nature, and we demand that you protect it from further attacks. As the EU Commission’s own Teresa Ribera puts it: “Protecting nature is not a cost. It is an investment in competitiveness, resilience and well-being.”
⚠️ POLLUTION PERSISTS – from PFAS in our waters to toxic air in our cities, millions of healthy life-years are lost long before they should. As we noted only recently, Europe’s waters are badly contaminated, with 62% not having good chemical status. The findings add to evidence that intensive agriculture is applying extreme and growing pressure on our waters.
PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ are polluting not only our waters, but also our bodies, with real impacts on our health. And they affect everyone, even EU decision-makers. Recently, we tested the blood of the aforementioned Commissioner Roswall, who received her results this week. This is what she said: “Yes, I do have PFAS in my body. I tested positively on 6 out of 13 PFAS. And 3 out of those 6 are officially classified as toxic for reproductive health.”
💸 SOARING CLIMATE COSTS – Increasingly regular, extreme and devastating weather has cost Europe €738 billion since 1980, with a quarter of that in just the last three years. The costs of pollution are also becoming impossible to ignore. Despite the fact that the EU has the ‘Polluter Pays Principle’ enshrined in EU law, these growing costs (which are not only financial but also relate to health and social wellbeing) are being shouldered by ordinary people across Europe.
📦 WASTEFUL ECONOMY – Europe remains hooked on unsustainable growth, importing critical raw materials and consuming over three times our fair share of planetary resources. By 29 April this year, Europe had already hit its “Overshoot” (the day each year when our demand for natural resources exceeds what our Earth can regenerate in that same year).
On top of this, Europe’s circular economy is stalling: after 15 years of promises, Europe’s material circularity rate rose by just 1.1%. Let’s remind ourselves of the doughnut economy, and the power of seeing growth through metrics other than GDP…
🪵 CARBON SINKS SHRINKING – Forests and peatlands are losing their ability to store carbon, putting our climate at risk. These precious assets mitigate devastating climate events, but are being increasingly threatened by intensive agriculture. If we support sustainable farming instead, we can begin to restore these precious assets, while also protecting European farms – one of the first victims of climate change.
⚡ ENERGY TRANSITION STUCK IN SECOND GEAR – Renewables are growing fast, but electrification is lagging because fiscal rules still make fossil fuels cheaper than electricity. The EEA points to progress on the supply side: energy use has fallen and emissions from energy suppliers have halved since 2005. But on the demand side, high electricity prices keep households and industries dependent on gas and oil.
The key tasks for this decade are clear: reform energy taxation, extend carbon pricing to more sectors, and improve cross-border planning to connect renewable hubs across Europe.
💼 SOCIAL JUSTICE DANGERS – The green transition is creating opportunities, but risks deepening gender inequalities unless the EU looks beyond male-dominated sectors and ensures everyone can shape a fairer, greener future.
🛠️ SO HOW DO WE FIX THIS LONG LIST?
THE MISSING INGREDIENT – First of all, let’s remember the popular demand is there, the resources are there, the technical expertise is there, and the money is there. So, all we need now is those with the power – Europe’s policymakers – to make the right decisions, based on science, in a transparent and democratic way.
POPULAR DEMAND IN NUMBERS – “Europeans demand stronger climate action and corporate accountability,“ reads the headline following the findings of a new poll published this week, conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Amnesty and Global Witness. The obvious follow-up question is then: who is the Commission deregulating for, if it is not what the people want, goes against science, and even its own Rules of Procedure?
THE PROBLEM? Between you and me, there’s more than one. But here’s one that’s managing to elude the public eye: there is a big risk that the EU is falling victim to corporate capture. Where the largest global corporations (those who would like short-term profits to continue rising no matter the cost to anyone else) have disproportionate access to the halls of power in the EU, to the policymakers who make decisions on behalf of us all. And the policies that they’re pushing for are not exactly designed to fix Europe’s list of problems…on the contrary.
🔥 ‘OMNIBUS’ = BONFIRE OF RULES THAT PROTECT US
THE BRUSSELS BUZZWORD NO ONE ASKED FOR – A few months ago, no one cared what “omnibus” meant. Unfortunately, the term now assails us daily. Oh, and as we have long said, it means deregulation in practice through a fast-track procedure with minimal democratic scrutiny.
Under the sanitised name “omnibus”, the EU Commission, loudly supported by the centre-right and hard right-wing of the EU Parliament, has begun its bonfire of rules that exist to protect people, planet, and business confidence. It seems like this is no longer being hidden: this week, von der Leyen even said, “We need deregulation”. A slip of the tongue, was it?
COPY & PASTE DEREGULATION – The Commission seems to be getting into a real groove with these “omnibuses”, now boasting a whole six with several still in the making! We might often think of fast-tracking stuff as good. But what this means is six fast-tracked processes to open up the rules to protect people and planet, gut them of meaning or enforceability, and then sew them up and pop them back in a drawer. That is why we drove around Brussels in a big red omnibus calling on the Commission to end this madness.
How Von der Leyen plans to “stay the course on our climate and environmental goals” (VDL, SOTEU speech) and deliver the EU’s environmental goals, while gutting those rules, is beyond us…
📘 WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT DRAGHI…
Just over a year ago, when the world was a different place, Mario Draghi (former President of the European Central Bank and Italian Prime Minister) was asked by the Commission to draft a report on Europe’s competitiveness. He did, based on the context at the time – with the US looming large in the race for net-zero technologies (remember the EU panic around Biden’s massive subsidy plan, the Inflation Reduction Act?) and being seen as a more reliable trading partner. Oh, how times have changed…
BABE, IT’S NOT HOLY SCRIPTURE – After many consecutive months, you’re probably bored of us banging on about why the EU’s “competitiveness” and “simplification” (aka deregulation) agenda is not actually good for you, us, or anything but the corporatist status quo. Now, the text of that report is being (clearly rather deliberately) taken as gospel to justify an agenda of deregulation – all supposedly to save €8 billion in “paperwork” for companies, as Ursula von der Leyen keeps repeating at every public event.
THAT’S NOT WHAT HE MEANT BY THAT – Since the launch of the Draghi Report over a year ago, “competitiveness” and “cutting red tape” have become the guiding mantra of the current von der Leyen Commission – so much so that it looks less like strategy and more like a strange scapegoat. Will deregulation actually fix any competitiveness issues of European companies? Are environmental safeguards, pollution controls, and climate plans really the biggest bureaucratic burdens holding EU economies back? Or (more to the point) is reducing paperwork really the EU’s priority at a moment when its very future is at stake?
The Commission’s own data leaves no room for doubt. Failing to implement EU environmental law costs Europe around €180 billion every year, while full compliance would cost €122 billion – delivering net savings of €58 billion. But here we are focusing on paperwork.
Against this backdrop, talk of ‘simplification’ as deregulation is just dangerously misleading.
💡 A REMINDER OF WHAT EUROPE DOES UNIQUELY WELL
STEADY SAILS – The EU was designed to be a steady vessel. A uniquely functional bloc based on rules and values that gave Member States, citizens and businesses stability rooted in one shared set of rules (many of which exist precisely to protect and enforce the rights of people and nature). It’s trust in the stability of the Single Market that has enabled millions of businesses to thrive in Europe and provided confidence to external countries to invest in the European market. It is these rules that have enabled Europe to thrive for so long.
THE POWER OF EUROPE’S RULES – While some policymakers claim these rules are standing in the way of Europe’s “competitiveness”, let’s remember that Europe’s unique selling point – its power – is its rules. And what the champions of the deregulation agenda seem to have forgotten: EU rules themselves are a simplification of what otherwise would have been 27 different legal systems and standards.
🧠 DOPAMINE HIT
- EU Member States give the green light to the EU’s first ever Soil Monitoring Law – a big step for soils and all the life they hold! Read more here
- Belgium just switched on the first half of what will be mainland Europe’s largest battery – once planned as a fossil gas turbine, now set to deliver 4 hours of clean power on demand. Read more here
- Despite the Trump Administration’s Best Efforts to Suppress It, Climate Science Is Alive and Well Online. Read more here
- Chunk Wins Alaska’s 2025 Fat Bear Week Competition. Read more here
- Wild horses return to Spain’s Iberian highlands after 10,000 years. Read more here
- UNESCO adds an area the size of Bolivia to reserves that protect 5% of the World’s land. Read more here
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By: Ben Snelson. Special thanks to the EEB’s editorial team: Ruby Silk, Roi Gomez and Alberto Vela. Editor: Christian Skrivervik.
