Busy day in Brussels. Proud to be part of the energetic protest this morning outside the European Commission together with citizens affected by #PFAS #ForeverChemicals from across Europe - 🇳🇱 🇫🇷 🇧🇪 🇮🇹 🇩🇰 🇩🇪 - and @[email protected] Together we demand a ban on PFAS now!
Even though President von der Leyen is happy to meet with CEFIC & chemicals industry in Antwerp to tell them how she is delivering on their agenda, it seems like she has no time to meet people living day-to-day with impacts of #PFAS pollution.
Then we took the community representatives on a lobby tour of 🇪🇺 quarter to show how #PFAS corporate lobby operates in Brussels: its access to decision-makers, and how some have relied upon “misleading, fearmongering, exaggerated, or potentially dishonest” lobbying, as #ForeverLobbying Project showed
When we got to Chemours' office building, some citizens peacefully entered and requested to visit their office to drop off bottles of #PFAS beer, a symbol of the contamination that the citizens of Dordrecht in 🇳🇱 and elsewhere experience, day to day.
A short civil conversation took place & then 6 police vans arrived. And they arrested the corporate polluters… Damn! That isn't what happened. 6 police vans turned up … against peaceful protestors who just wanted to explain how #PFAS have polluted their communities & why they want an EU ban.
It’s time to get tough with corporate lobbies, not peaceful protestors. #PFAS producers & their allies who lobby to delay, weaken, or derail the proposed ban on PFAS have had huge access to the Commission & other EU decision-makers and it’s time for this to stop. We need #ToxicFreePolitics now!