The European Union's flagship initiative to cut pollution from heavy industry has hit its first birthday, but a new watchdog study claims the bloc's ambition has caved in to the biggest polluters with more than 750 meetings between lobbyists and EU officials registered in just 12 months.
The investigation by the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), covering the period from 26 February 2025 until 3 February 2026, shows that the EU's Clean Industrial Deal has been captured by heavy industry lobbying and reshaped into a subsidy machine for Europe’s biggest polluters.
