In the lead up to a critical meeting of experts tomorrow that could decide the fate of the EU Fuel Quality 
Directive, the Council of Canadians joined with EU based allies in publishing three high profile print advertisements.
This is part of our ongoing tar sands campaign challenging Harper government’s foreign policy of peddling tar sands and reveal the connections between CETA negotiations and the tar sands. We recently sent a letter to EU MEPs on this topic and supported a tour featuring a EU MEP in Canada that received significant media attention. We have lots more on the way, including the creative delivery of photo’s we’ve been collecting of Canadians expressing their support for the EU FQD and that Harper doesn’t speak for us. It’s not too late – add your photo!
The ads published this week in EU based papers read:
The European Commission has proposed new rules to cut CO2 emissions from transport fuels. these would cut greenhouse gas emissions from transport fuels by 6% by 2020 anddiscourage the most polluting fuels.
Independent research has found that Canadian tar sands fuels emit 234 more greenhouse gases than the average for convention oil. Canada and the oil industry want the EU to ignore the harm they cause and allow unrestricted access to European markets for tar sands oil, defeating the objective of the law. EU member states are meeting shortly to vote on the Commission’s proposal.
Prime Minister: please put tackling climate change ahead of Canada’s oil interests and support the European Commission’s tar sands proposal.
To see the ads, visit:http://canadians.org/energy/issues/tarsands/
The ads were published in the UK, Netherlands and France, key voting countries that can help determine whether the EU FQD will adopt the EU Commission’s proposal which recognizes tar sands as a high carbon fuel (also recognizes other heavy unconventional sources such as shale oil) that have indicated some support for the Harper government’s position.
The ads were published in the Financial Times of the UK (November 30) and Netherlands (December 1). The UK Financial Times is an international business newspaper, a morning daily newspaper published in London. The FT has a combined paid print and digital circulation of 592,390.
The ad was also published in the popular French paper, Liberation (November 29), which has a circulation of about 140,000 and was the first French daily to have a website.
