Health lobbying spending on the rise, according to the HATVP

The High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP) has published its 2024 review interest representation activities. This report reveals a significant increase in spending on lobbying, particularly in the health sector. This development raises questions about the growing influence of private actors and third parties on public decisions affecting health and prevention policies.

Increased investment in health lobbying

According to the HATVP's 2024 report, the health sector is among the most affected by interest representation activities, representing nearly 10,100,000 of the files submitted. Already in 2023, it occupied first place among the areas most targeted by interest representatives. This continuity confirms that health remains a major strategic field of lobbying, due to its weight in public policies and the importance of the financial and social issues associated with it.

The main development lies in the increase in financial resources mobilized. While in 2023, the majority of stakeholders reported expenses between €50,000 and €100,000, the 2024 report shows that more and more organizations are crossing the €100,000 mark, with some even reaching ranges between €200,000 and €300,000. This increase reflects an increase in investments made to influence decisions affecting the regulation of the healthcare system, financing mechanisms, and prevention policies.

Companies and groups on the front line

The HATVP's 2024 report highlights that companies and professional groups play a leading role in health-related lobbying. Together, they account for the majority of reported spending in this sector, with spending ranges often exceeding €100,000 per year. Their financial resources allow them to deploy a wide range of activities: organizing institutional meetings, producing information, intervening in regulatory debates, and participating in public consultations.

These actors benefit from a structural advantage linked to the scale of the resources at their disposal, but also to the pooling of their resources and organized collective representation, which ensures their regular presence in decision-making processes. Professional federations, in particular, are among the most active entities in the health sector, with a sustained and targeted lobbying strategy.

In comparison, non-governmental organizations and public health associations report much more modest levels of expenditure, generally less than €25,000 annually. This contrast highlights a persistent imbalance between the financial resources committed by economic actors and those available to structures invested in promoting public health and prevention and acting in the general interest.

A central issue for public health

The increase in reported investments in health lobbying reflects the strategic importance of this sector in public debates. Prevention policies, budgetary choices related to the healthcare system, and the regulation of products with a direct health impact now account for a growing share of interest representation activities. This dynamic is explained by the fact that public decisions regarding health have considerable economic and social consequences, which encourages many stakeholders to strengthen their presence among decision-makers.

This intensification of lobbying, however, raises major governance issues. On the one hand, businesses and professional groups have substantial financial resources to assert their positions. On the other, public health associations and citizen organizations, with limited resources, must redouble their efforts to ensure that the policies adopted take the public interest into account above all.

In this context, the National Committee Against Smoking (CNCT) reiterates France's obligations regarding the protection of public policies against this tobacco lobby. This provision remains insufficiently known and taken into account by public decision-makers. However, the tobacco industry and its allies, such as tobacconists, pursue their influence strategies in a variety of ways and mobilize significant financial resources to influence regulatory and fiscal decisions concerning tobacco and nicotine products. Although this reality is not detailed in the HATVP report, it emblematically illustrates the imbalances that pervade the health field: industries whose products directly harm public health have resources that are far greater than those of prevention organizations working to protect the population.

The developments noted in the 2024 report confirm that the regulation of health lobbying cannot be limited to a requirement for transparency, which is itself poorly controlled when it comes to tobacco sector stakeholders. Lobbying regulations must also make it possible to anticipate and contain the disproportionate influence of private stakeholders on decisions that are crucial to public health.

©Generation Without Tobacco

AE