Hello and welcome to EU Influence. I’m Mari Eccles, travelling back from the Court of Justice in Luxembourg (more on that below) and rather enjoying the two-hour-long stretch of patchy WiFi. This week we’re looking at:
— The impressive Antwerp Call lobbying feat that’s perhaps not quite as it seems.
— European Commission fights back against claims it wasn’t transparent in its vaccine negotiations with pharma companies (and we’re not even talking about Pfizergate).
— Irish government’s St Patrick’s Day event in Brussels ruffles some feathers.
SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED?
INFLATING INDUSTRY INFLUENCE IN ANTWERP: Remember last month when EU leaders schlepped over to Antwerp to meet with industry? It attracted the likes of Ursula von der Leyen, Friedrich Merz and Emmanuel Macron, leaving some lobby groups jealously wondering quite how chemical industry representative (and organizer) Cefic had pulled off such a feat, Influence was told. While there, leaders were presented with a petition, written on behalf of some 1,300 companies and associations, that called for a reduction in the bloc’s carbon price — its main tool for reducing emissions.
Not as it seems: It turns out some of the companies that are purported to have signed the petition didn’t support the call, and even the organizers don’t know the actual number of backers, our Zia Weise writes in to say.
Background: Hundreds of company representatives gather annually for an industry summit, which was launched in 2024 with the so-called Antwerp Declaration. That declaration had nearly 1,350 signatories, including more than 900 companies, and did not mention carbon pricing. This year’s summit also ended with a petition addressed to EU leaders, the Antwerp Call, which demanded the bloc “bring down” its “carbon costs,” shorthand for reducing the Emissions Trading System price.
But who’s calling? That call was made “on behalf of the signatories of the Antwerp Declaration,” according to a document that was issued on Feb. 11 and, until recently, could be found on the summit’s website. An email sent to journalists that day was even clearer, saying that the call was made by “the Antwerp Declaration Community — representing more than 1,300 companies, associations and trade unions across Europe.” The wording suggests that all original signatories endorse the call’s contents. But that’s not the case.
Finn-tervention: The NGO Finnwatch a few weeks ago decided to check with Finnish companies that signed the original declaration. Of the seven that responded, Finnwatch found that three distanced themselves from the call for a reduction in carbon pricing. After Finnwatch published a blog post about this, it said the summit website’s Antwerp Call page started giving an error message, and a different PDF minus the “on behalf of” language was uploaded. The new document lists only 16 industry lobby groups as backers.
Let’s double-check: Zia decided to do some digging of her own and can confirm that not all the original declaration supporters backed this year’s petition. Of the 12 companies that got back to us, seven distanced themselves from the petition. Cement company Holcim, a 2024 signatory, told her it was “not involved” in this year’s call and supports a “stable” ETS framework. Norwegian aluminium and energy firm Norsk Hydro, another 2024 signatory, said it didn’t even attend this year, and didn’t sign the follow-up statement. Steel giant ArcelorMittal said it did support this year’s call as a whole — but it wasn’t asking for a lower carbon price. Read more from Zia here.
Organizers respond: All signatories of the original statement were invited to give input into this year’s petition, a spokesperson for Cefic said. But they acknowledged that there was no specific number of backers. “As the text builds on the existing Antwerp Declaration, signatories were not asked [to] sign, and no additional signatory list was created,” the spokesperson said.
Eyes on the next summit: The call “reflects the many opinions” heard in consultation calls, the spokesperson said. As for the deleted webpage: “As we now focus [on] the European Council in March, we updated the website and posted the text that gives tribute to the associations who supported the Financial Times advertisement.” (The letter was posted as an ad in the FT in February.) “As a next step we urgently call on the European Council to move beyond general conclusions and agree on concrete actions. A clear signal from Europe’s leaders is urgently needed to restore competitiveness in Europe,” they added.
Growing trend: This isn’t the first time we at Influence have seen this kind of approach to adding signatures to a lobby letter. Last year, some signatories of a joint appeal by French and German business bosses to loosen merger rules and scrap environmental laws to promote European industrial “champions” distanced themselves from the letter, saying they were encouraged to write it by their national governments.
COURTROOM DRAMA
NOT ANOTHER COVID VACCINE TRANSPARENCY CASE! The European Commission was in court in Luxembourg this week, defending itself against claims that it wasn’t transparent with the public about its dealings with pharma companies when negotiating Covid vaccine contracts.
Round two: This wasn’t a Pfizergate rerun (to recap, the Commission decided not to challenge an EU court’s ruling that it was wrong to block access to Ursula von der Leyen’s pandemic-era texts with the CEO of Pfizer). Rather, this relates to a broader case involving the officials who actually took part in the negotiations with pharma companies.
Commission vs Conspiracy theorists: The Commission was challenging a ruling from the EU’s General Court, which said that the public couldn’t possibly know if the Commission negotiating team had any conflicts of interest if the names of those negotiators weren’t revealed. A group of Green MEPs had asked to see the purchase agreements signed between the EU and the pharma companies, and the Commission’s response redacted information on the negotiating team, which the General Court said wasn’t transparent enough. Lawyers for the Commission argued in the Court of Justice on Wednesday that revealing those names would have opened up staffers to harassment from conspiracy theorists who oppose the vaccine deals.
As always with these cases, it led to a wider discussion about access to information from the Commission, which many activists (and journalists) believe has worsened in recent years.
Wait, what? A slightly incredulous-sounding president of the court, Koen Lenaerts, asked: “Do you really mean that?” when lawyers for the Commission said that a request for access to information from any member of the public with a “lack of specific interest” should not necessarily automatically be complied with.
Under pressure: As well as stern judges, the Commission’s lawyers also had to contend with a very busy courtroom. The room — the ECJ’s largest and grandest — was packed full of people who, judging by the laughter from the public benches whenever conspiracy theorists were mentioned, were backing the lawyers fighting against the Commission. You can read my dispatch from Luxembourg here.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
WANTED: COMPETITION DIRECTOR-GENERAL: The Commission is looking internally as it tries to fill the top post in its competition unit, adding a somewhat unexpected twist to the search for a successor to Olivier Guersent.
Internal vacancy: “The Commission has indeed decided to publish the post of Director-General for DG Competition internally,” a spokesperson for the EU executive told my colleague Francesca Micheletti, adding that they couldn’t comment further on ongoing appointment procedures.
What does it mean? According to Commission insiders, publishing a vacancy for a director general post means opening the process to candidates who are not at DG level — for example, deputy directors general. That suggests current DGs are out of the race — Gert Jan Koopman and Céline Gauer were among the names floated over the past months — while opening the door, for example, to the likes of Anthony Whelan, former adviser to von der Leyen and currently serving as DDG for state aid at DG COMP.
Long wait: The post of DG COMP chief has been vacant since last summer and the competition community — including, of course, those in DG COMP — is impatient for it to be filled. “On a general note for appointments of senior officials, the decision to appoint a new senior official or to transfer an existing senior official from one post to another, in the interest of the service, is taken by the College of Commissioners,” the spokesperson said.
**Is deregulation the key to growth or a risk to Europe’s regulatory legacy? From simplification to enlargement and sector-by-sector competitiveness, the POLITICO Competitive Europe Summit dives into the EU’s most pressing economic debates. Join us in Brussels on March 24.**
EVENTING
HUAWEI’S SPANISH RED CARPET: Huawei may be on Brussels’ blacklist over cybersecurity and alleged corruption concerns — but that hasn’t stopped one of Europe’s biggest tech shows from welcoming the Chinese giant with open arms.
Elephant in the room: At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, Europe’s top policymakers wandered through Huawei-sponsored halls, even as many of them are spending the rest of the year pushing laws designed to curb China’s tech influence across the continent.
Awkward: “You cannot restrict Huawei from your critical infrastructure on a Monday and celebrate their sponsorship on a Thursday,” said Mika Aaltola, a center-right member of the European Parliament from Finland, who is a member of the Beijing-critical cross-party parliamentary group IPAC — arguing that EU officials “should be mindful of the optics” given the company’s “formal high-risk designation” in several countries. My colleague Mathieu Pollet has the full story.
BACK IN THE SADDLE: While many meetings were cancelled this week because of the travel chaos that continues to wreak havoc globally, one meeting that has gone ahead is Ursula von der Leyen’s rendezvous with the European Horse Network, according to her agenda. The lobby group is something of a (sigh) hobby horse for the Commission chief, who (as former Influencer anchor Sarah Wheaton wrote) met frequently with them in her last mandate.
FRAUD IN THE EU
PLAYING THE SYSTEM: The EU’s post-Covid recovery fund could have been defrauded by more than €5 billion, EU prosecutors suspect. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) came out with its annual report this week, revealing that there’s one EU program that appears to be particularly susceptible to fraud: the Recovery and Resilience Fund.
When it comes to fraud in general: Customs and VAT fraud are by far and away responsible for the most serious estimated damage in the EU. They caused an estimated €45 billion in losses to EU and national budgets in 2025, according to EPPO’s report.
Parting words: Laura Kövesi, the European chief prosecutor, who is leaving the post this year, wrote in the report’s foreword: “Let the EPPO team’s unyielding commitment to independence be my legacy.”
Raison d’etre: Making the ideological case for the EPPO, which started operating in 2021, Kövesi said: “I still believe that the European Union is ruled by law and not by cost-benefit analysis,” adding: “EPPO’s role is to bring criminals to justice, not to recover the damage they have caused.”
IRELAND UNDER FIRE OVER GUINNESS TIE-UP: An Irish acquaintance of mine once sold a St Patrick’s Day bash at the Irish Perm Rep to me with three words: “Guinness. On. Tap.” So perhaps it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that the Irish government is this year partnering with alcohol giant and Guinness owner Diageo for its St Patrick’s Day reception in Brussels on March 17.
Meet our partners: Invites to the event say the reception is presented “in partnership” with companies including Diageo, Martin’s brewery, and Irish dairy coop Ornua.
Pouring scorn: But it’s an unpopular move with Irish public health NGOs, who told my colleague Rory O’Neill that the link-up “sends the wrong message” — not least after the alcohol lobby scored a recent win in Ireland against health labels on alcoholic drinks.
Just disappointed: “We are disappointed but not surprised to see this. It follows a long-standing pattern of Diageo being integrated into many official occasions, including prominent visitors to Ireland being brought to pubs for a picture with a pint — essentially the identification of Ireland with Guinness,” said Sheila Gilheany, CEO of the non-profit Alcohol Action Ireland.
Presidency plans: Documents released via Ireland’s Lobbying Register last year show Diageo met with Taoiseach Micheál Martin in April 2025 and “offered to work with the Irish Government” for the forthcoming Irish EU presidency, the Irish Times reported. Diageo offered the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin for presidency events from July to the end of the year. During that meeting, Diageo also broached the potential impact of U.S. tariffs on the industry.
No labels, please: Diageo attended a separate meeting the same day with industry lobby Drinks Ireland, which requested a delay to Ireland’s plans to introduce health warning labels on alcoholic drinks, which were due to come into effect this year. In July 2025, Ireland announced it was delaying alcohol labels until 2028.
The explanation: During an interview with POLITICO last year, Irish Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said a “gentle pause” in the rollout of the legislation was necessary due to the uncertainty around U.S. tariffs.
Elephant in the room: But for public health campaigners, the tension between Ireland’s approaches to alcohol and tobacco is becoming hard to ignore. Ireland is one of the countries pushing hardest for stronger public health controls on new nicotine products. “The Irish government would not have such an event sponsored by the tobacco industry,” Gilheany said.
Sad: Peter Rice, president of the European Alcohol Policy Alliance, said it was “sad to see that the Irish Government, who have been leaders in alcohol policy in recent years, have not, on this occasion, recognised the importance of limiting the influence of health harming industries.” Martin McKee, a professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the partnership “sends the wrong message.”
Cheers! In a written statement, Diageo said: “Happy St Patrick’s Day — however you choose to celebrate and have a great day — Sláinte.”
No reply: Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs, which is organizing the reception, did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the nature of Diageo’s support for the event.
INFLUENCERS
CONSULTANCIES
There’s been a wave of promotions at Brunswick Group over the past week. Micaela Duffau becomes partner, Patrick Matthews and Claire Alexander have been appointed directors, while Rosie Richardson has been promoted to associate.
Francesca Saglia and Niels Guchelaar have been made account directors, Zaynab Azzouz has been made an accountant, and Camila Morales has become an executive assistant and office operations coordinator.
FTI Consulting has announced the appointment of Claire Dilé as a managing director in the firm’s strategic communications segment. She previously served as global government affairs Europe director at xAI.
Denisa Avram joins Match Group as head of EU public policy. She was previously a digital policy expert at Europuls.
ENERGY
Felix Gill is leaving the energy-intensive industries unit at the European Commission’s DG GROW to join the German-based think tank Germanwatch e.V. as policy adviser for climate-neutral industry.
INSTITUTIONS
Alessia Angiulli has started as a press assistant for the EPP Group in the European Parliament. Before, she was communications manager at The European Consulting Company.
Antoine Begasse becomes deputy head of unit for interinstitutional relations, policy planning and implementation at DG FISMA. He was previously a policy assistant to the DG FISMA deputy director general.
DEFENSE
Alexander Mattelaer has been appointed as defense policy director at the Belgian Defense Ministry. He’s a senior research fellow at Egmont and a professor of international security at VUB.
Thanks to Zia Weise, Jordyn Dahl, Sarah Wheaton, Mathieu Pollet, Camille Gijs, Francesca Micheletti, Rory O’Neill, my editor Paul Dallison and producer Júlia Vadler.
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