Internal documents reveal how the agricultural lobby stifled the EU's green transition

This article was originally published in English on the media outlet Grilled. Organic Now has been granted permission to publish the full translated version. By: Zach Boren When Europeans went to the polls in June 2024, Europe's most influential agricultural lobby set a single demand: "Revoke the Green Deal." This message, discussed at a industry summit just before the vote, was the culmination of a years-long campaign to dismantle the most ambitious environmental initiative ever undertaken by the EU. Now, dozens of documents from Copa-Cogeca, the association of European agricultural interests, reveal how the group undermined and hollowed out the EU’s green agricultural commitments, one by one. The meeting minutes archive, obtained by Grilled—a new investigative journalism project—began in January 2021, just a few months after EU leaders presented their 'Farm to Fork' strategy, which forms the core agricultural element of the European Green Deal. In this strategy, EU officials promised to reduce pesticide use, restore ecosystems, cut emissions, and improve living conditions for farm animals. Five years later, this agenda was nearly abandoned. This is the story of Copa-Cogeca’s resistance. The documents reveal how the organization received support from EU Commissioners to block parts of the EU’s cancer efforts, pressured ministers to weaken protections for wild animals, secured emission exemptions for factory farms, and extended the use of cages for livestock. Less than a year after the adoption of the 'Farm to Fork' strategy, representatives of the group’s nearly 70 member organizations met via Zoom for Copa-Cogeca’s presidium meeting, held only a few times a year. There, the then Secretary-General Pekka Pesonen laid the groundwork for the upcoming campaign. He told the board that they would defend controversial animal products like foie gras and fur "in the same way as tobacco." Lobbying that controls Brussels' agricultural policy Copa-Cogeca holds a unique position in European politics. The organization represents agricultural associations and cooperatives across the continent, claiming to speak for 22 million farmers. However, the group has been accused of supporting the interests of industrial producers at the expense of small farmers. Pekka Pesonen, who led the organization for 17 years, told Politico in 2023 that it was unrealistic to expect small farms to survive: "The market simply doesn’t reward it." The federation is known for opposing environmental regulation and is particularly vocal in its support for meat, despite increasing evidence that livestock farming is a major cause of water pollution, a key driver of global deforestation, and one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. The internal meeting minutes obtained by Grilled were not meant for the public; they provide a rare insight into how Europe’s most powerful agricultural organization operates behind the scenes. The documents were not written in English; Grilled used AI translation tools, and key excerpts were verified by a native speaker. They depict an organization with extraordinary access, deeply embedded in the EU’s political machinery. The documents show that Copa-Cogeca can influence laws before they are even proposed, dismantle policies that have been in place for decades, and mobilize high-level officials in the Commission and farmers on the streets. Delara Burkhardt, a German Member of the European Parliament and member of the Parliament’s Environment Committee, believes the documents reveal a lobbying group with a clear goal. She told Grilled: "Big Agri is not interested in simplifying the Green Deal; they want to dismantle it." Delay and opportunism During negotiations on the Green Deal, Copa-Cogeca employed various strategies to achieve its goals; many of these required unusually high access to EU institutions. The documents show that Copa-Cogeca placed or tried to place its representatives in advisory groups on sustainable food systems, carbon removal, food safety, animal welfare, veterinary medicines, and civil dialogue (the Commission’s standing consultation groups for interest organizations). Commissioners Janusz Wojciechowski and Valdis Dombrovskis spoke at the group’s own management meetings, as did several Director-Generals from the Commission, including heads of DG AGRI and DG CLIMA, as well as parliamentary rapporteurs for pesticides and meat marketing. Several of these individuals are described in the documents as supporters of Copa-Cogeca’s stance behind closed doors. The organization explicitly sought to build high-level alliances to oppose Vice-President Frans Timmermans, the figurehead of the Green Deal. Partly thanks to its role in Europe’s political infrastructure, Copa-Cogeca used delay tactics to slow legislation and at one point declared it would "force the Commission to abandon its goals" of reducing pesticide use by postponing legislation until after the election. The proposal was withdrawn just months before the vote. Disproportionate access and influence Delara Burkhardt states that the documents raise questions beyond this investigative article. "The problem isn’t that interest groups lobby—it’s part of democracy," she says. "The problem is that a small number of powerful lobbying organizations apparently secure disproportionate access and influence over EU policymaking at the expense of Europe’s long-term interests in sustainability, food security, and resilience." One of Copa-Cogeca’s most effective delay tactics, used on various issues, involved commissioning private impact assessments and strategically releasing them to counter or replace the EU’s own. For example, in 2021, the group conducted its own analysis of the transition to cage-free livestock but withheld it for two years, sharing it only when the EU’s own assessment could no longer withstand legislative scrutiny. Meeting minutes suggest the Copa-funded study was "popular with the Commission" and that they "promised to use it." This strategic opportunism was also evident in 2022, when war broke out in Ukraine. At a presidium meeting two months after the Russian invasion, Copa members argued that the conflict should mean the end of the EU’s sustainability efforts. "War in Ukraine changes everything," said the Austrian delegate, according to the minutes, "we need to reconsider the 'Farm to Fork' and biodiversity strategies." The Irish delegate reportedly echoed this view, suggesting that the 'Farm to Fork' strategy could cause "a new humanitarian crisis." A spokesperson for the EU Commission told Grilled: "While others may seek to influence the debate, our decisions are made on Europe’s terms, according to Europe’s rules and in Europe’s interest." How Copa-Cogeca defeated the cancer action plan "Become a Beefatarian." This was the slogan of a notorious advertising campaign in 2020, funded by the European Union. It sparked protests from NGOs over EU funds being used to promote products that conflict with the union’s own environmental and public health goals, such as meat and alcohol. An analysis showed that over four years, the EU’s promotion program for agricultural products spent €252 million on advertising meat and dairy—equivalent to one-third of the program’s budget. When the program was updated in 2021 as part of the Commission’s cancer action plan, making it harder to get EU funds for marketing red and processed meats and alcohol, Copa-Cogeca took it very seriously. "We are not just talking about marketing policy," states the January 2022 meeting minutes, "because if meat is treated that way, it will spill over into other policy areas." At the same meeting, Copa-Cogeca described how it mobilized support for Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, who opposed the change. "Commissioners Dombrovskis, Breton, and McGuinness supported, especially Dombrovskis," the minutes say. "As for Member States, the ball is now in your court—lobby," Pekka Pesonen said at the meeting, adding: "If Member States put pressure before the decision, they will choose to keep meat and alcohol." The documents show that Copa-Cogeca coordinated with the alcohol industry to rally MEPs behind the cause. Official EU documents note that the proposal to cut support for meat marketing "caused significant controversy and resistance," and the measures were subsequently softened. Copa-Cogeca’s internal minutes are unequivocal: it was the result of "successful lobbying," and members’ efforts had been "of great benefit." The following year, in spring 2024, the proposal was entirely withdrawn, and Copa-Cogeca concluded: "Lobbying has borne fruit; the application deadline has been extended, and the budget increased." Opposing alternative proteins While protecting—and ultimately increasing—the budget for meat marketing was a central focus during this period, Copa-Cogeca also aggressively worked to prevent similar support for alternative proteins. The documents show that Copa-Cogeca blocked plant-based diets from being included in the 'Farm to Fork' code of conduct, which sets principles for the EU’s food sustainability agenda. The organization also mobilized ministers to oppose an application for cell-cultured foie gras submitted by the French startup Gourmey, even before the Commission had reviewed the case. Alex Holst, Vice Head of Policy at the Good Food Institute Europe, sees the Gourmey episode as part of a larger pattern. "It’s concerning to hear that ministers were subjected to lobbying regarding approval before EFSA even completed its review," he says. "It fits a pattern where misinformation is used as a weapon against plant-based foods and cell-cultured meat across Europe." To fight the Green Deal leader Frans Timmermans, the Dutch Social Democrat who became the political face of the European Green Deal, appears throughout the Copa-Cogeca archive as the organization’s main opponent—a figure they sought to isolate and maneuver around. As early as July 2021, Copa-Cogeca’s people were clear about their goal: "It’s necessary to find a commissioner who will stand up to Timmermans in the College." What followed was a staged faction fight within the Commission itself. When Timmermans threatened to initiate his own hearing on meat marketing—a process unpopular with Copa-Cogeca—the organization used supportive commissioners to block it. "Dombrovskis, Hahn, and B have agreed to push for the hearings to start," reported Copa-Cogeca officials. When the subsequent deadlock left the issue in a status quo preferred by Copa-Cogeca, the internal assessment was straightforward: "In some respects, it’s good that the proposal is blocked, since the current policy suits us." In 2023, Copa-Cogeca worked to further consolidate its advantage. "The Agriculture Commissioner is relatively isolated in his stance" on the framework legislation for sustainable food systems, states a minutes, "Copa is trying to garner more support from Von der Leyen’s and Dombrovskis’ cabinets." The framework legislation was never adopted. Frans Timmermans left the Commission in August 2023 to lead the Dutch Social Democrats into the parliamentary elections. His departure removed the Green Deal’s most committed advocate at a critical moment. After years of seeking commissioners willing to oppose Timmermans, by late 2024 Copa-Cogeca found itself in an even more advantageous position. Timmermans was gone, and the new Agriculture Commissioner, Christophe Hansen, told Copa-Cogeca’s presidium that farms are "the solution, not the problem," that taxing agricultural emissions "serves no purpose," and that Europe needs "fewer laws." Copa-Cogeca’s chairman responded with only one reply: "You’ve started very well." How pollution rules were relaxed In 2022, the European Commission proposed expanding industrial emissions rules to include more large livestock farms. This would mean certain intensive farms would, for the first time, have to meet the same pollution permit requirements as factories and power plants. Initially, the proposal was even supported by Agriculture Commissioner Wojciechowski, a longtime ally of Copa-Cogeca, who was met with hostility when he spoke to the organization’s presidium in April 2021: "100,000 birds on a farm is not agriculture—it’s industry," he said. Two years later, he told the same assembly that he "opposes many aspects" of the proposal. Copa-Cogeca’s campaign was so effective that it raised the threshold for what counts as an industrial farm even before the text was published. An internal note from April 2022 claimed that early lobbying had paid off: "The secretariat sent letters to various heads of the Commission and commissioners, and as a result, the threshold was changed from the originally planned 100 DE (animal units) to 150 DE." An EU analysis leaked to the French media Contexte showed that the higher threshold would reduce health benefits by €1.8 billion annually. That was just the beginning. Organized a rapid protest Copa-Cogeca combined lobbying in Parliament, media campaigns, and organized farm visits to push its case against the law. Decision-makers were taken to Wallonia to see pig farms, beef production, and carbon sequestration projects. Brochures were printed. Letters were sent to the permanent representations of member states ahead of key votes in the Council. "Quick lobbying is needed," the organization concluded in September 2022: "We call for a rethink of the thresholds." As the final decision approached, the campaign moved to the streets. Copa-Cogeca helped organize a rapid protest outside the European Parliament in Strasbourg on the day of the plenary vote, where a large screen broadcast the results live, while tractors and invited MEPs gathered outside. The final directive completely excluded cattle and set thresholds significantly higher than initially proposed. Marco Contiero, EU agriculture policy chief at Greenpeace, says the campaign revealed who Copa-Cogeca truly represents. "By running such an aggressive campaign against including the largest cattle farms in the industrial emissions directive—despite the measure covering just over 1% of Europe’s cattle farms—Copa-Cogeca exposed whose interests the organization actually prioritizes," he says. "Instead of defending the vast majority of Europe’s small and medium-sized family farms, it chose to protect a small group of highly industrialized producers, responsible for an outsized share of pollution." How the cage age was extended The petition to "end the cage age" for farm animals was one of the most successful European citizen initiatives, with over 1.4 million signatures. The Commission responded publicly by committing to propose legislation to phase out all cage systems by the end of 2023, with a complete ban planned for 2027. But lawmakers were already behind Copa-Cogeca. As early as February 2021—months before the petition reached its goal—Copa-Cogeca’s people decided to preempt the Commission: "If we propose a measure now, we have more room for maneuver regarding funding and transition periods." While the Commission prepared its June 2021 pledge to phase out all cages, internal Copa-Cogeca discussions were revealing. At a meeting just weeks before the announcement, a Copa-Cogeca representative was candid about the prospects of banning cages: "If the Commission offers support, we could give up cages tomorrow." Copa-Cogeca’s lobbying stance, however, was that a transition away from hen cages could take up to 15 years. Gabriele Kubikova, head of legislation at the European Institute for Animal Law & Policy, calls Copa-Cogeca’s approach "a smoke screen to justify delays in implementation." She argues that long transition periods are no guarantee of timely compliance: "Extending timelines tends to postpone change rather than achieve an effective overhaul of farming practices." The cage age is not over yet. The citizen committee behind the petition has since sued the Commission for not acting on its pledge. The European Commission is expected to propose plans to phase out cages for laying hens by the end of 2026—several years after its original commitment. How Copa-Cogeca killed the EU pesticide law The promise to halve pesticide use was perhaps the most central policy in the Farm to Fork strategy—and one of the most controversial. The documents show how Copa-Cogeca deliberately planned to delay setting the pesticide reduction target. At a September 2022 meeting, the organization discussed keeping the issue unresolved until the EU elections two years later, when a new parliament and commission would be less inclined to pursue it: "Maybe it’s worth dragging it out until then." While they threw obstacles around the sustainable pesticide use regulation (SUR), Copa-Cogeca also fought to keep controversial pesticides on the market. "Press the permanent representation to get support," an instruction from 2022 states, ahead of a vote on extending glyphosate approval, which WHO’s cancer agency classifies as "probably carcinogenic." Glyphosate’s approval was renewed in 2023 for another ten years after member states twice failed to reach a decision, and the Commission approved it on its own. The organization also worked to shape the narrative around neonicotinoids, which are harmful to pollinators. A document prepared in response to the citizen initiative Save Bees & Farmers— which collected over a million signatures—highlighted farmers’ existing measures and aimed to show there was no need for stricter pesticide controls. Internally, it was described as "a good lobbying tool," although a delegate warned it gave a false impression that farmers could halt pollinator decline without EU funds. The pesticide reduction target was formally withdrawn by the Commission in February 2024—just months before the EU elections Copa-Cogeca had pinned its hopes on. The Habitat Directive under dismantling In 2021, Copa-Cogeca’s people were pessimistic about the prospects of formally downgrading wolf protections. Doing so would require amending the Habitat Directive—the EU’s fundamental nature law that has protected species across the continent for 30 years. "Hoping for changes to the Habitat Directive is probably naive," an internal document admitted. They were wrong to doubt themselves. The archive shows how Copa-Cogeca coordinated with member states and allied organizations on what it called campaigns for "large predators." They wrote to governments, organized events with MEPs and scientists to put pressure on decision-makers, and built coalitions with hunting and landowner groups to weaken wolf protections under the directive. In September 2024, the presidium declared it a success: "A major lobbying victory—the fight is over." Ariel Brunner, EU policy lead at BirdLife International, believes the wolf decision is only the beginning. "Lowering wolf protections in Europe does nothing to solve farmers’ problems," he says. "But it’s a first victory in the agricultural lobby’s ideological crusade to dismantle EU nature protection and broader environmental laws. We now face a full-scale attack on both EU nature legislation and laws protecting water and limiting pesticide misuse." The consequences go beyond wolves. A later document discussing what should now be changed in the directive asked members to submit "examples of your needs— which animals and birds should be added to the annex." Last year, the Commission launched a "stress test" of the entire directive, potentially paving the way for a historic rollback on environmental protections. Abolish the Green Deal The protests by farmers sweeping across Europe at the end of 2023 and early 2024—tractors on motorways, manure sprayed on EU buildings, fires in central Brussels—are often described as a spontaneous outburst of rural anger. The violence, which Copa-Cogeca carefully distanced itself from, was a problem for the organization. Internal reports reveal that farmers were increasingly seen as "conservative, populist, nationalist, and far-right." Another document neutrally noted that "some media suspect Russian money and support aimed at influencing the European Parliament election." Nevertheless, street anger was an opportunity to push concessions, and when the EU elections arrived in June, Copa-Cogeca distilled its demands into four words: "Repeal the Green Deal." The Green Deal was never formally scrapped, but the right-wing European People’s Party won a large majority with a program promising to roll back environmental regulations. The simplification agenda that began the following year and continues today erodes what remains of the sustainability agenda in agriculture. The EU’s new farm animal strategy, released last week (early July), shows how far Copa-Cogeca’s campaign work has advanced the organization. The focus on reducing cattle’s climate emissions has shifted to recalculating them; efforts to limit meat consumption have been replaced by measures to increase production. "We need to move beyond polarizing debates," said Commissioner Hansen during the presentation. Copa-Cogeca was satisfied: "After years of portraying livestock production as part of the problem," the response read, "the Commission now recognizes its contribution" and addresses "issues that the agricultural sector has been calling for for many years." Copa-Cogeca has not commented on this article.