The European Commission has been criticised for giving too much space to industry and business interests in discussions over a fast-track streamlining of sustainability and due diligence reporting rules.
Liberal MEP Pascal Canfin has slammed what he calls a “fake consultation” over plans to renegotiate due diligence requirements for companies operating in Europe, in what green groups fear will be just a first phase of a bonfire of red tape.
Economy commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis is due to convene a ‘simplification roundtable’ on Thursday (6 February) to discuss a so-called omnibus proposal to amend a raft of EU laws that were only recently adopted amid considerable political division.
These are the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the EU’s sustainable investment taxonomy – a list of business activities deemed to be ‘green’ under EU law.
But the EU executive has been slammed for drawing up participant list heavily skewed towards business interests, and holding the talks behind closed doors just three weeks before it plans to publish its proposal.
“I am in favour of simplification of public policy, as long as it means making their delivery easier and is not a smokescreen for deregulation,” Canfin (France/Renew Europe), a former chair of the European Parliament’s environment committee, said in a social media post this week.
“Looking at the leaked list of the participants of this ad hoc consultation makes me fear that it will end up as being a fake consultation,” he said.
That list includes ten civil society and two union umbrella groups, alongside some two dozen trade associations representing sectors such as the chemicals, automotive, insurance and banking sectors, along with a raft of individual companies ranging from Airbus to ExxonMobil.
Canfin bemoaned the absence of any pro-sustainable finance business groups, or companies who have actively supported the legislation aimed at greening Europe’s economy.
He named Nestlé, Ferrero and Unilever, which were among a group of firms that wrote to Commission president Ursula von der Leyen this month, voicing concern about the “potential for others to use this process to call for the legislation to be reopened for political renegotiation”.
The campaign group Share Action today echoed Canfin’s concerns, criticising a review process it said had been “hastily arranged, with no meaningful opportunity for wider stakeholder engagement”.
“What’s at stake is the future of key sustainability laws that hold companies and investors accountable for their environmental and social impact,” the ShareAction statement said. “The Omnibus threatens to weaken these rules under the guise of simplification.”
The second Commission headed by conservative EPP group politician Ursula von der Leyen has made a mantra of the term simplification – Dombrovskis’s full title is Commissioner for Economy and Productivity, Implementation and Simplification – and intends to revisit the gamut of EU regulation to lighten the reporting burden for businesses.
In a ‘competitiveness compass’ setting out its plans to help European firms on the global stage, the EU executive revealed last month that the review of corporate sustainability reporting rules would be only the first in a series of unspecified ‘omnibus’ proposals, details of which are expected in a 2025 work programme slated for publication next week.
