Ribera fought Commission plan to nix greenwashing rules

BRUSSELS — EU climate boss Teresa Ribera fought a running battle inside the European Commission for days recently to try to salvage an effort to stamp out corporate greenwashing.

Ribera, an executive vice president who oversees much of the EU’s environmental policy, pressed Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall not to kill off the proposed law, according to an EU official and another in the European Parliament.

She succeeded — but too late. 

Ribera’s rearguard effort began last week after the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), by far the largest group in the European Parliament, vowed to block the law in the legislature.

The Commission indicated it would drop the proposal. But by Sunday evening there were signs Roswall’s position had shifted.

Then, on Monday, it emerged that Italy had tanked the deal over the weekend, forcing EU countries to back away from the negotiations and leaving the legislation in limbo. 

A clearly frustrated Ribera took to social media with a message that appeared directed not only at European lawmakers and national governments but also at her own Commission.

“You may claim being green or you may decide not to do it. But customers deserve respect. We should honour their trust and ensure a reliable information support,” she wrote on the Bluesky social network.

Commission spokesperson Lea Zuber on Monday played down the divisions in the executive. “EVP Ribera, like the whole Commission, stands by the proposal,” she said.

It’s not the first time the Spanish Socialist commissioner has been involved in internal Commission disputes over green policies. Last February, POLITICO revealed that a serious fight between senior Commission officials had narrowly avoided major cuts to green finance rules. 

Ribera’s intervention also highlighted tensions brewing inside the EU’s executive body — which is now overwhelmingly run by EPP members — that reflect a wider schism roiling Brussels institutions. 

The last straw

Tensions over the EPP’s sidelining of other political groupings blew up on Friday when a Commission spokesperson indicated the body intended to kill off new rules to prevent companies from greenwashing. 

Teresa Ribera, an executive vice president who oversees much of the EU’s environmental policy, pressed Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall not to kill off the proposed law. | Oliver Hoslet/EPA

The Green Claims Directive aims to stop companies from misleading consumers with unfounded claims that their products and services are good for the planet, by asking them to back up their statements with verifiable proof.

Backed by far-right groups in the European Parliament, the business-friendly EPP have been hacking away at the EU’s green regulations, a campaign that has intensified in recent months. They argue that many of the bloc’s environmental laws — from sustainability disclosure obligations to monitoring the health of European forests — are too burdensome for corporations and farmers. 

On Friday the Commission announced its intention to withdraw the proposal, just days after the EPP wrote directly to Roswall, herself an EPP member, requesting that she withdraw the file.

The move riled centrist and left-leaning political groups, who accused the Commission of jeopardising the European institutional process and ignoring the coalition of moderate parties that support Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s second term.  

“Let me be clear, Environment Commissioner Roswall and Commission President von der Leyen are to be blamed for this unprecedented situation,” said MEP Tiemo Wölken, the Socialists’ lead negotiator on the file during a Monday press conference. 

“It is a huge scandal,” the EU official said. Roswall’s team declined POLITICO’s request for comment. 

Last week, after she realized the Commission was toying with dumping the initiative, Ribera, a career-long advocate for green policy, worked to rally her own party, as well as the Greens and the centrist Renew group, to support the file, the official added.

Botched job or conspiracy

Wölken told POLITICO he suspected the Commission had orchestrated the confusion on Friday to prompt the Italians to reverse their position. “They used the Council to do their job for them,” he said. 

“This is a proposal that Italy has never supported,” a diplomat from an EU country said. 

But the European Commission rejected the accusations that it had bowed to pressure from right-wing groups to kill the bill. 

“We have received the [EPP’s] letter but the real reasons behind our intention are different,” a spokesperson from the Commission told POLITICO on Friday, reiterating that “the current discussions around the proposal go against the Commission’s simplification agenda.”

The executive explained the move was meant to incentivize the other negotiators to agree to exempt very small businesses from the scope of law. If they agree, then “we will not withdraw it,” the spokesperson later confirmed.

The EPP’s position on this file, however, is final. “We note that there is a lack of support, both in the Parliament and in the Council, so there are no reasons to proceed with [negotiations],” said Arba Kokalari, a Swedish MEP from the EPP working on the file.