{"id":25173,"date":"2025-06-30T15:24:46","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T15:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/?p=25173"},"modified":"2025-06-30T15:24:50","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T15:24:50","slug":"new-brussels-anti-vape-groups-barred-from-lobbying-with-public-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/post\/new-brussels-anti-vape-groups-barred-from-lobbying-with-public-money\/","title":{"rendered":"NEW: Brussels anti-vape groups barred from lobbying with public money"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Letters referred to in this article can be viewed here<\/a> and here<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both major organisations leading the charge against safer nicotine products in the EU have both received letters from the EU Commission demanding that they stop lobbying officials using public money.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The letters were sent to the Smoke Free Partnership and the European Network for Smoking Prevention in late April, and were obtained via an Access to Documents request initiated by Clearing the Air. Coming during a period of increased scrutiny for the NGO world in general, the letters note that activities that are \u201cspecifically detailed\u201d and \u201cdirected at the EU institutions\u201d may \u201centail a reputational risk for the Union\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the general story about NGOs losing lobbying budgets was covered by Clearing the Air in May<\/a>, this is the first time it has been confirmed that both ENSP and SFP received letters telling them directly to stop with the lobbying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

They set out various activities for which \u201cthe use of EU funds is prohibited\u201d, including \u201csending letters, organising meetings or providing advocacy material to EU institutions or specific members of an institution; or identifying specific members or officials of an institution to evaluate or describe their positions, or to discuss specific political content or outcome\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The European Network on Smoking Prevention (ENSP) is not new to accusations of misusing EU funds, conflicts of interest or bias against safer nicotine products. As we covered extensively on Clearing the Air, the organisation has been retained to help the EU Commission write new laws on safer nicotine products<\/a> while lobbying for them in parallel, and its involvement has been placed under scrutiny by the European Ombudsman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to figures from the EU Transparency Register, around half of SFP\u2019s funding came from the EU Commission in the form of an operating grant for \u20ac277.994. That number has increased to over \u20ac325.000 this year, with a further \u20ac95.000 earmarked for a specific project called Filtered, which is supposed to \u201cstimulate collaborative advocacy, health promotion, action and accountability at the European and national level\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is unclear how the project, which arranged conferences to discuss \u201cpro-health taxes on alcohol, tobacco, and unhealthy food and drinks, and learn how to advocate for these measures\u201d, is compatible with the new guidance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Letters referred to in this article can be viewed here and here Both major organisations leading the charge against safer nicotine products in the EU have both received letters from the EU Commission demanding that they stop lobbying officials using public money.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":990003,"featured_media":25174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257],"tags":[27,186],"slider":[],"class_list":["post-25173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-article","tag-nicotine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/990003"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25180,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25173\/revisions\/25180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25173"},{"taxonomy":"slider","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/slider?post=25173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}