Respect for Animals has filed a complaint to the European Ombudsman over the European Commission’s handling of the Fur Free Europe European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), alongside Eurogroup for Animals and FOUR PAWS.
We instigated this complaint because we are deeply concerned by how, at the very moment the Commission is deciding what happens next with its response due by March 2026, the fur industry has been granted behind-closed-doors access, while the ECI’s organisers were ignored.
This is not balanced stakeholder engagement. It looks like privileged access for a cruel industry fighting to protect its existence, while the organisers of a democratic initiative backed by 1,502,319 verified citizens are shut out.
Respect for Animals Campaigns Manager, Richard Bissett, said:
“The European Citizens’ Initiative is meant to strengthen democratic participation in the EU. But when the Commission meets industry behind closed doors and ignores the organisers of a successful ECI, it undermines that purpose. We’re asking the Ombudsman to intervene so this process is transparent and balanced. It is vital that the Commission’s response reflects the clear public mandate to end fur farming and remove farmed fur from the EU market.”
The complaint highlights three core problems.
1) The organisers were ignored while the industry got meetings
The Fur Free Europe Citizens’ Committee requested an equivalent meeting with the Commissioner. The complaint says the request was not properly acknowledged or answered, despite the fact the Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi met senior fur lobby figures earlier in the process.
2) Industry-only workshops shaped the policy discussion
The complaint cites Commission confirmation of three workshops in September 2025 with the fur industry lobbyists, intended to feed into “technical specifications for regulatory options”, with no equivalent workshops for civil society.
3) Transparency was blocked
The complaint says access-to-documents requests relating to the workshops were delayed and then refused, with key materials such as minutes, participant lists and related documents withheld even while the Commission confirmed documents existed. The complaint argues that this is especially troubling in the context of a citizens’ initiative, where openness and accountability should be non-negotiable.
4) Scientific evidence is being sidelined
The Commission has publicly said its decision will be informed by EFSA’s scientific opinion on the welfare of animals farmed for fur. But the complaint argues that the Commission’s assessment tools and “welfare standards” modelling appear to ignore that scientific evidence, and instead reflect specifications developed through closed industry engagement.
A European Citizens’ Initiative is not a PR exercise. It is a democratic mechanism. Once citizens have delivered the signatures, the process should be transparent, fair and balanced.
Instead, the complaint argues the Commission’s approach risks steering the outcome towards what the fur industry finds acceptable, such as low “standards”, rather than what citizens demanded: an EU phase-out of fur farming and a ban on placing farmed fur on the market.
A stakeholder survey, which the EC conducted in November, only elaborated on low welfare fur farming scenarios, with no reference to the EFSA’s findings, published only months before. The claimants argue that during the assessment stage, the EC should evaluate all policy scenarios, and not just ones which allow fur farming to continue.
