from Bruxelles - An investigation is raising straightforward questions about the democratic stability of the European Union and the role of external influences in its decision-making processes. In the report Warborn in the USA. A tale of the demise of European democracy by an MEP under American influence, the NGO Bloom, in collaboration with the media outlets Der Spiegel (Germany) and Aftonbladet (Sweden), traces the gradual weakening of one of the main European regulations protecting human rights, the environment, and the climate. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) was allegedly targeted by a lobbying strategy coordinated by the US fossil fuel industry, with political support from the Trump administration.
At the heart of the investigation is Jörgen Warborn, a Swedish MEP from the European People's Party (EPP) and rapporteur for the dossier, identified as the main point of access for the US fossil fuel industry within the EU Parliament. At the same time, a close network of official meetings with US lobbyists, large energy multinationals and intermediaries (from the American Chamber of Commerce to ExxonMobil, Koch, Teneo and Competitiveness Roundtable) is said to have helped build an unprecedented alliance between the right and the far right, which was decisive in reshaping the parliamentary balance and undermining the heart of the directive.
The investigation, however, frames these elements within a broader political dynamic that calls into question the continuity of the so-called “Von der Leyen majority”, responsible for the Green Deal and the advancement of European social, environmental and climate legislation in recent years. With nine other omnibus packages awaiting approval in the EU legislative process, the question arises: does the EPP intend to continue on this trajectory, or is it opting to turn the page, paving the way for a structural alliance with the radical right? We discuss these issues, the implications for European sovereignty and the risk of normalising extra-European influence in the EU's democratic processes with Swann Bommier, advocacy director at Bloom.
In your investigation, Jörgen Warborn appears as a central figure in the dismantling of the CSDDD. How did his role as rapporteur, combined with his ties to lobby groups and international networks, concretely shape the legislative outcome?
Warborn was not only identified as their main target within the European Parliament, but the leaked documents also explicitly stated that the American Chamber of Commerce should be used as a proxy for their lobbying efforts. When this is taken into account, and when one looks at the central role played by the American Chamber of Commerce in meetings with Warborn, it becomes clear that there was a coordinated US lobbying strategy aimed specifically at him. That strategy, also outlined in the leaked Teneo documents, was to achieve their objectives — namely, the destruction of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive — by forging an alliance between the right and the far right. This sort of an alliance had never occurred before. What makes this particularly troubling is that on 1 October, at the very beginning of the legislative debate in the European Parliament, Jörgen Warborn announced, on behalf of the EPP group, that he had already secured an agreement with the far right. He then pushed that agreement through by claiming that a second option was theoretically possible, but only if the liberals from Renew and the Socialists accepted his terms and conditions without negotiation. This represented a complete reversal of the way the European Parliament has operated for decades. By imposing this logic, Warborn ultimately delivered exactly what the Competitiveness Roundtable and the American Chambers of Commerce were seeking: a right–far-right alliance that dismantled the two core elements of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, namely the harmonised civil liability regime and the climate transition plans.
The EPP ultimately broke the cordon sanitaire and aligned with the far right on a key Green Deal file. Does it signal a deeper, structural shift within the EPP?
The first point that needs to be kept in mind is that breaking the cordon sanitaire, as happened with the Omnibus One legislation, is in itself a major red flag. It had never happened before. We are therefore entering completely uncharted territory. The second point is that this did not occur simply because Warborn believed it was the best political strategy. It was a strategy that was explicitly and publicly supported by the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, who repeatedly endorsed it in press conferences and at meetings of the European Council. It is also a strategy with which Manfred Weber (EPP’s President, ed.) has been aligned.
The investigation also demonstrates Jörgen Warborn and Manfred Weber went together to Washington as early as December 2024.
They travelled just a few weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration. During that trip, they met members of the Trump administration, elected representatives of the US Republican Party and the Heritage Foundation, the lobby group and think tank behind Donald Trump’s programme for re-election. This shows that the ties with the United States do not concern Jörgen Warborn alone but also involve Manfred Weber, who travelled with him to Washington in December 2024. These contacts were repeated in December 2025, when Warborn returned to Washington, this time accompanied by the EPP vice-president from Spain, Dolors Montserrat.
Do these relations continue in 2026?
In a video published on her Instagram account, Montserrat publicly praises herself for having met the Capitol, the Senate and the State Department, and for being congratulated by the American administration on the Omnibus vote. This confirms that these close ties not only exist but keep developing into 2026. In 2026, we have also seen Weber advocating for closer cooperation with Fratelli d’Italia. In an interview with Politico, for example, Weber called on the Renew group and the Socialists to work with the ECR and Fratelli d’Italia, stating that Giorgia Meloni is someone they can rely on. This is deeply troubling when one considers the fascist history of Fratelli d’Italia. It is also worrying because Friedrich Merz and Giorgia Meloni have been working increasingly closely at the beginning of 2026. At the same time, Warborn, Weber and Metsola have, in 2026, advocated expediting a US–EU trade deal, both before and after Donald Trump’s speech in Davos and following his threats to invade Greenland. All of this shows that these ties exist at the level of the EPP as a whole. The fundamental and strategic question that now needs to be addressed is whether the EPP sees its future in an alliance with the far right or whether it intends to continue pursuing the construction of the European Union as it has developed over past decades, through negotiation and cooperation with the founding political families of the EU: the centre, the Renew group, the Socialists and the Greens.
At the same time, the Warborn case exposes serious weaknesses in the EU’s post-Qatargate ethics and transparency framework. In your view, what are the most critical gaps that still allow conflicts of interest and foreign interference to occur?
There are many elements showing the code of conduct for Members of the EU Parliament is still not appropriate for purpose. The first is that a large number of meetings are not disclosed. The funding of trips made by MEPs to non-EU countries and the identity of the people they meet there remain completely inaccessible. Secondly, we do not know what members of the European Parliament discuss with lobbyists, non-EU public officials or elected representatives. These meetings take place behind closed doors, which poses a serious threat to European sovereignty and autonomy. There is also a major problem linked to the enormous financial power and access enjoyed by the fossil fuel industry within the European Parliament. This is particularly concerning given that the fossil fuel sector has, for decades, financed climate scepticism, climate inaction and climate denial. Another key element concerns the nature of meetings themselves. Closed-door meetings should be prohibited. When the members of the European Parliament meet lobbyists, these encounters should take the form of hearings, with a public record of what is being discussed.
And when transparency rules and the code of conduct are not respected or when the democratic interests of the European Union are at risk?
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office should have the capacity to carry out investigations. In addition to this, there should be an independent body responsible for monitoring compliance with the code of conduct, with the authority to initiate investigations. Even before cases reach the threshold required for action by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, there should be a single, independent European body in charge of enforcing integrity and transparency rules within the Parliament, with the power to launch enquiries and impose sanctions. At present, this role is played by an advisory committee, which suffers from a clear conflict of interest, as it is currently composed of a majority of EPP members. There should also be full transparency rules preventing MEPs from taking on new professional activities or holding representative positions for organisations that are registered in the EU Transparency Register or for bodies whose purpose is to influence European decision-making processes. Otherwise, serious conflicts of interest arise. These conflicts of interest are at the core of our investigation. Warborn is both a member of the EU Parliament and the president of two lobbying organisations: SME Europe at the European level and SME Global at the global level. These are arenas in which the right and the far right increasingly converge, raising fundamental questions about the strategic autonomy and sovereignty of the European Union and about whose interests members of the EU Parliament are truly representing.
Cover: Swann Bommier