New limits on air pollution in Europe have been watered down because governments are allowing some of the worst polluters to help draw up the rules, according to a Greenpeace investigation.

The Guardian has also learned that despite UK claims to the contrary, energy industry representatives repeatedly and forcefully pushed for weaker pollution limits at meetings in Brussels.

As a result of ongoing lobbying, the proposed European Union standards on toxic emissions from coal plants will be less strict than in China, the green campaign group said.

Greenpeace analysed the backgrounds of hundreds of representatives who have been appointed by governments to sit on a key official group that is formulating new limits on air pollution across Europe.

It found that out of 352 members of the technical working group, 183 are either employed by the companies that are being regulated, or by lobby groups that represent those companies.

“Toxic emissions are killing thousands of people across Europe every year, but rather than clamp down on polluters, politicians are allowing them to prioritise profit over public health. People in the UK could now end up paying with their health for our government’s sell-out to the coal lobby on a vital issue like air quality,” said Lawrence Carter, a campaigner for Greenpeace.

Documents released to the group under the freedom of information act show that the companies helped to formulate Britain’s position, which was adopted and submitted to the European negotiations two years ago.

This is a classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse Lawrence Carter, Greenpeace

Five out of the UK’s nine-strong delegation in Brussels work for companies that are responsible for large-scale emissions, including coal power plant operators RWE, EDF and E.ON. The remaining members of the British delegation are civil servants.

The UK government maintains that industry representatives do not negotiate but the Guardian has learned that at key meetings in Brussels, they forcefully pushed for weaker pollution limits.

Officials from energy firms repeatedly complained about the cost of clean air improvements, and a perceived lack of analysis of the economic consequences. They also lobbied to eliminate measures such as ‘coal washing’ from consideration, which would have reduced emissions of ash and sulphur dioxide.

Other measures advanced by energy firms included weaker limits for nitrogen oxide emissions from gas plants, and using more polluting plants as the baseline for limits set under the new rules.

A UK government spokesman told the Guardian: “It is absolutely right that the working group includes representatives from industry as they are well positioned to advise on these very technical and complex matters. It is also right that UK civil servants represent stakeholder interests, including industry, in Europe.”

In all, more than 8,500 comments were submitted by EU states on the proposed new rules, a number the commission considers “exceptional”. The Guardian understands that the vast majority sought to weaken the proposed limits or introduce exemptions.

“Operators of energy utilities shouldn’t sit in the official member states delegation to avoid obvious conflicts of interest in the setting of environmental performance benchmarks that they will themselves have to meet,” said Christian Schaible, a senior policy officer for the European Environment Bureau.

In its report published on Thursday, Greenpeace accuses the delegations from Britain, Poland, Czech Republic, Greece, Germany, France and Spain of being the driving force behind the weakening of proposed controls.

“Several of these countries are among the largest sources of coal-fired power plant pollution in Europe, causing significant health impacts and costs on their citizens and on the citizens of neighbouring countries,” the campaigners said.

Greenpeace accuses nominally-independent members of European delegations of regularly promoting the interests of the polluters, “often using statements directly copied from industry representatives”.

“This is a classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse,” Carter said. “By leaving the big polluters to write new air quality rules, EU and UK ministers are guilty of a collective dereliction of duty.”

The industrial emissions directive rules were originally proposed in June 2013 and could still be amended in a formal proposal which the commission hopes to have ready by the end of the month. Across Europe, they would cut sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate matter emissions by around 70%, 50% and 60% respectively.

But an EU source confirmed to the Guardian that this would still be less robust than in other countries.

“The US legislation was stronger than our [proposal]. They were quite a bit ahead of the EU, so Greenpeace are probably correct,” they said. “China had quite ambitious plans but putting them into reality is another story.”

The new rules govern ‘best available techniques’ for curbing emissions under the directive, which is intended to prevent or reduce pollution.

However, a clause in the directive allows rules to be implemented in an “economically viable and technically reliable” way. Some countries argue that the benefits of cleaner air are outweighed by the cost of technologies such as selective catalytic reduction, the most effective way of controlling nitrogen oxide emissions.

Industry groups say that the top 20 energy utilities have already lost €500bn since 2008 because of EU clean energy targets.

“Looking at the potentially high number of power plants which we will still have to close and the very limited scope for investing in this area, I think it is logical that industry should have expressed a strong interest in keeping their ability to supply much-needed balancing power alive,” said Hans ten Berge, the secretary-general of Eurelectric, which represents Europe’s electricity companies.

On Tuesday, the European Environment Agency warned that air pollution will still cause hundreds of thousands of people to die prematurely in Europe in the next two decades because of governments’ failure to act.