The Ombudsman has found maladministration in the European Commission’s failure to ensure transparency across all its departments when it comes to meetings with tobacco lobbyists. Her finding also includes the Commission’s failure to make sure all departments systematically assess whether specific meetings with tobacco industry representatives are needed in the first place.

As a signatory to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the EU is obliged to limit its interactions with the tobacco industry and to make those interactions transparent.

The Ombudsman’s inquiry revealed however that while numerous Commission departments have held meetings with tobacco representatives, only the health department (DG SANTE) and the taxation and customs department (DG TAXUD) proactively make public the existence and/or minutes of these interactions irrespective of the seniority of staff involved. Other departments, such as trade, internal market, and climate action, only proactively publish meeting information involving senior officials or commissioners.

Furthermore, the inquiry showed that minutes do not seem to exist for a number of meetings Commission staff had with tobacco lobbyists and that some existing minutes fail to provide a meaningful account of the content of meetings. Of the 11 meetings where there are no minutes, four are with members of Commissioners’ Cabinets.

The inquiry also found that the Commission has no specific procedure or rules for assessing whether individual meetings with representatives of the tobacco industry are necessary, despite the fact that FCTC guidelines state that interactions with the tobacco industry should be limited to those strictly necessary for regulation. The Ombudsman urges the Commission to put rules in place for this purpose and to apply them consistently across all its departments.

The Ombudsman welcomed the Commission’s commitment to further assessing the exposure of its departments to lobbying by the tobacco industry. In early 2024, she will provide the Commission with information it should communicate to senior staff to ensure the thoroughness of this assessment. She has also asked the Commission to report on the outcome on the assessment and progress it has made by 30 June 2024.

The Ombudsman’s decision in this inquiry follow preliminary findings issued earlier this year and an analysis of the Commission’s response. The preliminary findings were based on an examination of documents concerning Commission meetings with tobacco industry representatives in 2020 and 2021 as well as related discussions with the Commission.