European Commission to simplify environmental rules to support businesses

Politico reveals in its article that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is preparing to overhaul environmental regulations she played a key role in creating during her first term. 

Two months into her second term, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is preparing to cut through environmental regulations she helped shape.

Reducing regulations has become a key focus for the new Commission, as Europe's struggling industries, falling behind American and Chinese competitors, urge Brussels to ease the EU's notoriously burdensome regulatory framework.

The European Commission will unveil a comprehensive set of goals, dubbed the "competitive compass," designed to strategically boost business. One of the first concrete actions will be an "unprecedented simplification effort," set to be presented next month.

The centerpiece of the new approach will be legislation aimed at simplifying how companies report their compliance with the EU's environmental regulations. The goal is to cut down on paperwork, allowing businesses to focus more on growth, innovation, and competitiveness.

However, this simplification process means that von der Leyen will essentially roll back some of the laws she introduced during her first term, including many that are just a year old.

While von der Leyen asserts that the package will not alter the environmental goals of the regulations, only make them more efficient, critics remain unconvinced. They argue it could be a harmful step back for the EU’s green agenda, potentially playing into the hands of conservative forces, including those within the center-right European People’s Party, von der Leyen’s own political group.

“This could set a very problematic precedent” and could be “the first step in a deregulation wave across Europe,” warned Tsvetelina Kuzmanova, the EU sustainable finance lead at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, echoing concerns voiced by many environmental groups.

First introduced last November, the "omnibus" legislation will revise and streamline several existing laws simultaneously. The proposal, which is set to be released on February 26, will fulfill a commitment von der Leyen made during her reelection campaign to cut reporting requirements by at least 25 percent in the first half of 2025.

Two of the laws that the legislation targets — the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) — mandate that companies disclose the environmental impact and climate risks associated with their operations and supply chains.

Once fully enforced, these regulations will require businesses of all sizes to gather and publish data on various factors, including their greenhouse gas emissions, water usage, the effects of rising temperatures on working conditions, chemical leaks, and whether their global suppliers comply with human rights and labor standards.

By Naila Huseynova