Eleanor Brooks

EURO-DOGE by stealth? Concerning developments in the (de)funding of European health civil society At the time of writing in June 2025, the European Commission’s directorate general for health, DG SANTE, has yet to publish its work programme for the year

“DG SANTE’s continued pressure on health CSOs sends a worrying message. As the US experience shows, government–civil society partnerships are easy to break—restoring the value that they bring to policymaking is much harder.” @eleanorbrooks.bsky.social @hjarman.bsky.social @eupha.bsky.social

Who funds the WHO Foundation? A transparency analysis of donation disclosures over the first 3 years of its operation Introduction The WHO Foundation (WHOF) was established in 2020 with the stated aim of broadening the donor pool to the WHO. Academics and civil society actors raised concerns regarding the potential n...

New article in @bmj Global Health with Emily Adrion and Jeff Collin: "Who funds the WHO Foundation? A
transparency analysis of donation disclosures over the first 3 years of its operation" gh.bmj.com/content/10/7... @lhgp.bsky.social @uoe-sps.bsky.social

@jacktaggart.bsky.social and I have been working together on multistakeholderism, and thinking about how these hybrid forms of governance connect to multilateralism

This is an attempt to think through institutional hybridity in global plastics governance

www.globalpolicyjournal.com/articles/glo...

Remember Piepergate? The EU Commission officially ended today the position of EU SME Envoy, which was vacant since the resignation of Markus Pieper one year ago
(below the new organisation chart of DG Grow, without the position)
www.mlex.com/mlex/energy/...

EPHA and the University of Edinburgh have developed a series of explainers on the Better Regulation agenda.

Find this and all resources on our dedicated page: epha.org/brbh-toolkit/

@eleanorbrooks.bsky.social @clemricherdel.bsky.social @ukri.org

Why Progressives Must Organise to Stop the EU’s Deregulation Wave Under von der Leyen’s lead, the European Commission is driving a far-reaching deregulatory agenda, threatening social and environmental protections. Olivier Hoedeman (Corporate Europe Observatory) rev...

𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐯𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐧'𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 ➡️ 𝐖𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐟-𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 🌏 𝐞𝐧𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 🌳💧 𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 👥 & 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 ✊ 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐫 – 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 ‘𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬’.

✒ by Olivier Hoedeman @corporateeurope.bsky.social

LAUNCH: Today, we publish a toolkit for civil society, to support engagement with the Better Regulation agenda! You can find:

🔸Videos
🔸Explainers
🔸How Better Regulation processes affect health
and much more!

Access the toolkit now: lnkd.in/edKwMpGm

ABSTRACT Though often framed as a technocratic tool, impact assessment is a core element of the political agenda-setting process. In this article, we show that decisions about what is subject to legislative debate are made during impact assessment; specifically, during the drafting of the assessment report. Using a social process tracing methodology, we analyze the removal from the agenda of provisions for stronger alcohol advertising rules during the revision of the EU's Audiovisual Media Services Directive. We identify and test three possible explanations for this non-decision, drawing on material not previously in the public domain, and exploring how procedural politicking in the context of the EU's Better Regulation agenda shapes the drafting process. Concluding that the non-decision on alcohol advertising regulation was most likely prompted by combined political pressure from within and outwith the Commission, we argue for greater attention to impact assessment as a tool for mobilizing bias and agenda-setting.

#Earlyview #Openaccess

'Impact Assessment as Agenda-Setting: Procedural Politicking and the Mobilization of Bias in the European Union's Audiovisual Media Services Directive'
By @eleanorbrooks.bsky.social & @kat-lauber.bsky.social

#RegGov #BetterRegulation

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The huge sums for EU lobbying by the biggest declaring corporate interests are clearly paying-off, considering the pro-business agenda of the second von der Leyen Commissions. EU decision-making faces a real risk of regulatory capture, and there are next to no effective protections in place. Corporate competitiveness is being prioritised over democratic values and social and environmental protections. We need lobby firewalls to protect public decision-making. The Commission must stop providing privileged access to industry lobbies and ensure that civil society and community voices are heard. Introducing a legally-binding register is long overdue, to deliver meaningful sanctions for posting inaccurate data.

Clean Industrial Deal risks becoming yet another example of corporate capture.

Without strong transparency rules & enforcement, plus real accountability, industry will continue to write the EU’s agenda behind closed doors.

✊ We need #lobbyingfirewall to protect public interest decision-making!

Cover of the report, with the titles: The EU’s lobby league table: Big Tech, Banking, Energy, Chemicals & agri-business Based on the analysis of companies declaring more than €1 million on annual lobbying in the EU lobby register. Data corrected as of 8 February 2025.

Big business spends millions lobbying the EU, but who are the top spenders, and what do they want?

Together with @lobbycontrol.bsky.social we took a look and can reveal that declared corporate lobby spend has reached unprecedented levels.

#lobbying
#lobbyingfirewall
#corporatecapture

Plastic Partnerships: How Corporations Are Hedging Against the UN Global Plastics Treaty Abstract. The global plastic crisis has intensified over the past decade, pressuring corporations to address their environmental impact. In response to a UN resolution to negotiate a treaty to end pla...

new paper with @jacktaggart.bsky.social in @gepjournal.bsky.social on corporate power, multistakeholderism and the Global Plastics Treaty

we contend that multistakeholder partnerships constitute a key hedging strategy for companies facing regulatory pressures to address plastics pollution

2024 marked 70 years since the tobacco industry, faced with mounting evidence of the harm caused by its products, issued their “Frank Statement” to smokers reassuring them that the link between smoking and lung cancer was yet to be proven.🧵

Commission's review of the #EuropesBeatingCancerPlan #EBCP cites 'current lack of evidence to suggest that further measures would add to the protection of EU citizens', beyond what's in the existing Low Voltage Directive commission.europa.eu/document/dow...

Planned European Commission Recommendation on reducing #health / #cancer risk associated with sunbeds withdrawn yesterday ec.europa.eu/info/law/bet...

So one of the most important pieces of health legislation of this mandate, with implications for patients, pharmaceutical companies and health systems, will be proposed and adopted with no impact assessment or genuine public consultation, and little indication of why. #BetterRegulation...? /end

Both the Political Guidelines for 2024-2029 (p.9) and the mission letter to the Health Commissioner (p.6) include a 100-day deadline for a proposal on Cyber Security for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (announced 15 Jan), but no deadline for the Critical Medicines Act 8/9

One justification being given is that the #CriticalMedicinesAct is meant to be proposed (the next stage) within the first 100 days of the new Commission, which are up at the beginning of March. But this is also strange because this deadline isn't mentioned anywhere in the Commission's plans... 7/9

...it also applies to 'medicines of common interest', a concept not clearly defined in the documentation but seeming to detract from the 'urgency' argument ec.europa.eu/info/law/bet... 6/9

The call for evidence lays out the problem - supply chains are vulnerable, shortages happen - but doesn't give concrete examples of life-threatening situations (I'm sure they exist, they're just not described). It's also worth noting that the act will be about more than just 'critical' drugs...5/9

It's annoyingly hard to identify which Commission proposals are announced without impact assessments (I've found no centralised list for this) but known examples relate to the migration crisis and COVID-19 legislation (see SWD accomp. COM(2019)178, p.20). Is the CMA urgent in the same sense? 4/9

On the 'urgency' exemption: the Commission's own rules say that impact assessment should be conducted for all initiatives 'expected to have significant economic, social or environmental impacts'. The Commission can itself exempt a proposal, and the language here is about urgency and security 3/9

*given that the Council's upcoming agenda foresees adoption of the initiative by the Commission by 11 March, and the call for evidence (the only avenue for public consultation) closes on 27 February, it's hard to see how the input of stakeholders can be fully considered prior to drafting 2/9

Strange developments re the EU's new #CriticalMedicinesAct. Widely considered the most important piece of health-related legislation announced for this mandate, but to have no impact assessment or genuine* public consultation, on the basis of its 'urgency'... 1/9

given that the USAID website has just gone offline, I feel it is profoundly misguided for public health experts to be giving this administration any credit whatsoever

Todays biggest story, I think. CEOs Vicky Cann has written a great report on industry lobbying in the EU against a universal PFAS ban. They are good at it - the lobbyists for the PFAS producers, the chem. industry, pharma industry and others. There's a risk very little will be done in coming years.

⏳ One week left to submit an abstract for our upcoming workshop on politics and health care/policy - deadline 21 Nov - feel free to get in touch with any questions. Full details below 👇

Perhaps of interest for @policyrelevant.bsky.social @kat-lauber.bsky.social @profkatsmith.bsky.social @merikoivusalo.bsky.social @centrehealthpolicy.bsky.social @paulcairney.bsky.social @twagnerrizvi.bsky.social

Eleanor Brooks on LinkedIn: Towards a political science of health and healthcare Call for papers - Towards a political science of health and healthcare ECPR Joint Sessions workshop, Charles University Prague 20-23 May 2025 We are delighted…

Fab opportunity to spend four days discussing all things political science and health - come join us in Prague in May 2025 - deadline for applications = 21 November. Full details and call for papers at www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

This is a major challenge facing health - as well as social, environmental and labour - policy at EU level, and a key opportunity to work together to change the narrative on regulation 👇 #betterregulation