Two months after the start of her second term, the chairman of the Commission Ursula von der Laienne He is preparing to set fire to a bunch of environmental bureaucratic processes, in which he played a central role.

The cuts of regulations is one of the new Commission’s mantras, as Europe’s suffering industries – lacking their US and Chinese competitors – call Brussels to lighten the heavy regulatory framework of the EU.

On Wednesday, the Commission will present a wide framework of targets, which will be collectively called a “competition compass” and will be a strategic shift to stimulate the business. One of the first specific measures will be an “unprecedented effort to simplify”, which will be presented next month.

The main axis will be the legislation that will rationalize the rules on how companies will mention their compliance with Green EU regulations. The great idea is to reduce bureaucracy so that companies can focus on growth. , innovation and competitiveness.

This simplification, however, means that von der Laien will essentially get a “scythe” for the laws it introduced in her first term – some of them are only one year.

Von der Layen insists that the set of measures will not change the environmental goals of the rules, but will only make them more effective.

According to Politico, her opponents are not convinced and warn that this is a dangerous setback on the EU green agenda.

“This could take an extremely problematic previous” and a possible “first step in the deregulation wave across Europe,” said Tsvetelina Kuzmanova, head of EU sustainable funding at Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership – Environmental groups.

Simplification, not deregulation

Initially, it was announced in November that the “Omnibus” legislation would restore and simplify a number of existing laws at the same time. The proposal, which is expected to come on February 26, will fulfill the promise made by von der Layen before re -election to reduce reporting obligations by at least 25% in the first half of 2025.

Two of the laws targeted by the legislation – the CSRD report and the Directive on Due to Corporate Sustainability (CSDDD) – require companies to submit reports on environmental impacts and impacts and impacts Exposure to climate dangers of their own activities, as well as those of their supply chains.

Once fully applied, the rules will force large and small businesses to collect and publish information on greenhouse gas emissions, how much water they use, the impact of rising temperatures on working conditions, chemical leaks and whether Their suppliers – who are often located around the world – respect human rights and labor law.

The set of simplification measures will also review a sorting system that describes which economic activities are considered green in accordance with EU standards.

It is not yet clear how collective legislation will change these rules. A spokesman for the Commission told Politico that “other files are being considered” in addition to the rules for reporting, due diligence and classification.

‘Completely absurd’

These laws, part of the European Green Agreement, were designed to push investments to greener companies and put Europe at the forefront of a global green revolution.

However, the target of widespread criticism of increasing the cost of compliance with European companies compared to other jurisdictions, where environmental legislation is weaker and governments have shown little signs to follow Europe’s example.

“The number of data in this directive is completely irrational”, especially for medium -sized enterprises, which do not have the same financial resources as large businesses to cover the cost of compliance, Florence Naillat, Deputy General, told Politico in November in November. A representative at Meti, a business lobby representing the interests of about 6,200 medium -sized enterprises in France.

The media had estimated that the cost of compliance with the CSRD could amount to € 800,000 in the first two years of implementation for a medium -sized French business.

This is precisely the type of problem the Commission seeks to deal with the simplification of rules.

“The importance of simplifying EU rules is widely recognized beyond the political lines,” a spokesman for the Commission said, adding that simplification is “vital to achieve the ambitious goals of the European Green Agreement”.

Not

However, many powerful teams want the Commission to move on much more than the proposed package of measures.

In a document published last week, the largest EU business lobby, Businesseurope, listed 68 “proposals to reduce regulatory burdens”, in which a large number of new environmental laws are named as a potential target by EU rules. to reduce packaging waste to its laws on product safety, reflecting the calls for center -right legislators for a widespread revision of EU regulations.

The leaders of the governments of EU member states from all over the political spectrum have also warned that regulatory regulations paralyze the bloc’s economy and many have put pressure on the Commission to move further.

The Central Government of France, for example, wants the EU to suspend the law on due diligence, while also echoing the demand of German Chancellor’s Socialist Chancellor, all of the implementation of the implementation of corporate viability reports by two years. .

Fears of deregulation

It is therefore not surprising that the Commission referred to OMNIBUS as the first of the many simplification packages aimed at environmental legislation in the EU, fueling fears that the simplification agenda will lead to wider disintegration of environmental rules.

The first indication is that the European People’s Party – the political family of von der Laien, who had requested a package of simplification during her election campaign – wants laws to apply only to “larger companies with more than 1,000 employees ” The team also calls for a two -year delay in EU carbon duties to imported products, the mechanism of carbon border adaptation.

Another concern is that the beam of simplification measures aims at rules that have not even been fully applied. The CSRD, for example, voted in 2023, began to apply to a limited number of Europe’s largest companies just last year, with the first deadline for reporting this month. Other companies are going to be subject to the regime gradually: large listed companies have up to 2025- small and medium-sized companies by 2026: While companies outside the EU will report reports in 2028.

“Changing the EU report framework, which has just been recently approved and not yet fully implemented, would create greater legal uncertainty,” said Greens’ teams in the European Parliament in von de Laen in a letter dated 13 January.

Not even all companies support the set of simplification measures, with some arguing that changing the application of the rules would be worse. “Investments and competitiveness are based on policy certainty and legal predictability” and the collective proposal “is in danger of undermining both”, warned large consumer brands such as Unilever, Nestlé and Primark in a statement dated January 17th.

“The Commission still has no proper feedback from all stakeholders and Member States on the implementation of the new legislation,” the Greens’ letter adds.