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Competere - Policies for sustainable development

Competere Policy Lab

Competere is a policy institute that performs analysis and advocacy to foster global trade, innovation, and resilient and sustainable supply chains, to promote sustainable nutrition, and to empower individuals in their effort to thrive in liberty, in prosperity, and in harmony with the ecosystem.

Lobbying Activity

Meeting with Monika Hencsey (Director Environment)

4 Nov 2025 · Exchange of views on the preparations for the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and relevant developments in the palm oil sector in Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as on the Commission proposal for targeted amendments

Meeting with Alexandra Nikolakopoulou (Head of Unit Health and Food Safety)

4 Nov 2025 · Presentation of the palm oil supply chain and the latest findings on the safety of palm oil

Response to EU cardiovascular health plan

11 Sept 2025

Competere Policies for Sustainable Development, a policy institute that promotes balanced lifestyles and innovation-driven policies, thanks the Commission for the opportunity to provide feedback to this call for evidence. We welcome the initiative to address cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), a chronic pandemic of the 21st century, through prevention, early detection, treatment, and innovation. In the attached document, we share our perspective: effective action against CVDs requires a radical shift in approach. Policies focused on "one size fits all solutions, such as sugar taxes or simplified front-of-pack labels, have proven ineffective and sometimes counterproductive. Instead, the priority must be to empower citizens to achieve and maintain their own balance through education, critical knowledge, and tools for precision health. We highlight the need to put physical activity back at the center of prevention, alongside balanced nutrition, reflecting the evolutionary reality that movement must guide caloric intake. We also stress the importance of integrating medical innovation, such as GLP-1 receptor agonists and SGLT2 inhibitors, into cardiovascular care, and of ensuring equity of access while combating stigma around obesity. Competere promotes the 3Es framework, Exercise, Enjoyment, and Eating, as a practical foundation for healthier, longer lives. We invite the Commission to read the full PDF attached, where we detail our recommendations for a European strategy that is balanced, personalized, and multidimensional.
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Meeting with Michele Picaro (Member of the European Parliament)

10 Apr 2025 · Meeting

Meeting with Silvia Sardone (Member of the European Parliament, Committee chair) and CropLife Europe

30 Oct 2024 · ENVI COMMITTEE

Meeting with Daniela Rondinelli (Member of the European Parliament)

24 Oct 2023 · Olive oil: Product protection and sustainability of the entire production chain

Meeting with Charlie Weimers (Member of the European Parliament)

11 Jan 2023 · Front-of-pack labelling

Meeting with Véronique Trillet-Lenoir (Member of the European Parliament) and SAFE

29 Nov 2022 · Front-of-pack labelling reform, event organised by Euractiv

Response to Environmental claims based on environmental footprint methods

28 Aug 2020

Competere is a research center based in Rome and Brussels that elaborates ideas to improve our lives, producing and promoting policies and business models to foster innovation and develop better human technology design interaction. Competere is a creative platform where citizens come together to think, brainstorm, discuss, research and advocate for a smarter world. Its doors are open to every individual and group that wants to bring fresh ideas and visions Given its extensive experience gained in close contact with the world of food, the center is strongly interested in evolving the legislation on the consultation’s subject in order to ensure competition based on the principles of clarity and uniformity. In particular, recognizing a wide importance to the issue of comparative claims and labels, Competere has always supported the need for these instruments to be regulated by light and clear rules that foster competition and ensure consumers with consistent transparent information to make free choices. In this regard, emphasis is placed on the need to let the above-mentioned claims to compete against each other measuring their efficacy through the use of a frame of reference such as, for example, the Life Cycle Assessment or LCA. As such, it is possible to provide the consumer with an effective and comprehensible interpretative tool. At the same time, food companies and producers are engaged to provide better sustainable supply chains and strengthen their certification schemes. Likewise, the Commission shall ensure consumers’ access to education and information regarding sustainability. Science based evidences and facts must be available to consumers in order to make better and freer choices. Consumers’ scientific education and access to the experimental method is the most powerful tool to overcome fake-news and misinformation. The food market has been heavily distorted by labels and claims designed around fake-news, such as the case of palm oil. Many ingredients have been boycotted for competitive reasons with the consequence of misinforming and misleading consumers, distorting the market dynamics, surging diplomatic and geopolitical clashes, fostering protectionism instead of promoting free trade. Beside this approach to the evolution of the present situation, the Commission should support the legitimacy of only "positive" claims, not negative (such as the classic "Free From" Labels) and not discriminatory towards any type of ingredient and/or component. This is due to the fact that, given the experience gained from the markets in recent years, there is a risk of creating new distortions of meaning, dangerous and harmful both for consumers and for companies. A recent example that has seen palm oil as the protagonist is clarifying in its result. The inaccuracy and inconsistency of the negative claims has in fact created a collective boycott that still harms the market and fair competition between the economic actors involved. In fact, despite the fact that a high quality and sustainable palm oil has existed for some time now and that it is developing its own network of certification subjects, contributing to the exit from poverty for millions of individuals, it is still being demonized as unsustainable and harmful to the environment.
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Response to Pharmaceutical Strategy - Timely patient access to affordable medicines

7 Jul 2020

Innovation is fundamental for economic growth. Therefore, European Commission should avoid implementing policies that threaten or constraint it. As a think tank focused on innovation policies, our aim is to help the European institution to pursue the specific objectives of the Pharmaceutical Strategy and implement its roadmap. Objectives 1) Ensure greater access and availability of pharmaceuticals to patients and 2) Ensure affordability of medicines for patients and health systems financial and fiscal sustainability are pivotal to improve the welfare of European citizens. For this reason our hope is that the Commission will encourage investments in sectors with a high technological content, and will reconsider its support to the sectors that do not favor innovation and have very low margins. At the same time, the Commission should not intervene to set a cap on drug prices, as Europe did in the 1980s, research and innovation suffer. Firms, in fact, are unlikely to invest in future research unless they believe doing so will be profitable. Private firms routinely exit markets—and entire industries—once they lose profitability, even as they try to enter new, more promising markets. Price controls reduce industry R&D, which decreases the number of new drugs developed and thereby hurts patients in the future. It is simply not true that government can impose significant price controls without damaging the chances for future cures. Countries that allow higher drug prices experience more innovation. They also benefit from a more competitive domestic industry and more good jobs. New regulation framework should aim at reducing the cost of drug development, which would likely result in both lower prices and increased investment in R&D. Commission and EMA should continue to improve and streamline, wherever possible, the drug approval process, keeping in place existing safety and efficacy standards. Another option is to encourage more innovation in drug manufacturing. Recent studies argues that pharmaceutical manufacturing could be more efficient. They attribute much of this to high regulatory barriers and inefficient intellectual-property protection of manufacturing methods. Fostering IP rights is fundamental to give innovators incentives and gurantee revenues for their effort, especially in intense R&D sectors such as pharmaceuticals manufacturing. Pursuing objective 4) Support EU influence and competitiveness on the global level, reduce direct dependence on manufacturing in non-EU countries, seek a level playing field for EU operators should also take into account a pro-market approach, balancing it with the needs of ensuring citizens access to the most innovative therapies and drugs. We recognize that dependencies for medicines and medical supplies, especially when centered on non-market-based economies, can present serious national security vulnerabilities that must be urgently addressed—one of the reasons why a realistic mapping of such vulnerabilities is needed. Anyway, the way to achieve the objective is through innovation and stronger IP incentives, rather than restrictions. European citizens need policies that encourage market and especially the introduction of new innovation and the development of new products rather than penalizing competitors. Finally, European Union should put a huge efforts in fostering technological innovation and knowledge in order to become more competitive. Evidence suggests that developing innovative therapies would create shorter supply chains in the vicinity of local laboratories (EU based) rather than global chains.
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