Kick them out: Suspend Russian lobby access

⚠️ UPDATE: We just heard that President Roberta Metsola will suspend the access of Russian lobbyists to the European Parliament!

This is a great first step, but still our fight continues, because these lobbyists still have access to other EU buildings via the EU lobby register. We call on Charles Michel as Council president to make sure they are banned from all EU premises.

Three months into Putin’s war in Ukraine, lobbyists from Russian oil, gas and nuclear companies still have unlimited access to the European Parliament. We need to suspend their access now.

✍️ Join our call to President Charles Michel to remove Russian lobbyists from the European institutions.

The Russian invasion in Ukraine had shown us just how dependent the EU is on Russian energy. Every euro we spend on importing Russian energy is a euro fuelling Putin's barbaric war in Ukraine. And while the EU discusses increasing sanctions on Russia as the war goes on, representatives of Russian energy companies still have access to European Union buildings. This is unacceptable.

Russian lobbyists are not only interfering in the debate on sanctions. There are many other EU matters that are targets for them to influence.

Take the so-called EU taxonomy, the European list of sustainable investments. The European Commission wants to add fossil gas and nuclear power to this list, labelling them as ‘green investments’. In the run-up to this highly controversial decision, intense lobbying was done by Russian state-owned gas and nuclear energy companies, Gazprom and Russian State Nuclear Energy Corporation Rosatom.

And so far with succes: if gas is included in the EU taxonomy, research shows that expansion of European gas capacity could give Russia an extra €4 billion a year. Similarly, including nuclear energy in the taxonomy could allow Rosatom to secure a share of an estimated €500 billion.

We cannot allow Russian warmongers free access to influence European policymakers.

We call on Charles Michel as President of the European Council, to immediately suspend the access of Russian lobbyists.

Support our call and add your name.

Michael Bloss 🇩🇪 - Bas Eickhout 🇳🇱 - Daniel Freund 🇩🇪 - Rosa D'Amato 🇮🇹 - Claude Gruffat 🇫🇷 - Markéta Gregorová 🇨🇿 - Marie Toussaint 🇫🇷
Members of the European Parliament for the Greens/EFA