On Wednesday 16 February the Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) almost unanimously expressed their support for the directive on corporate sustainability reporting. The issue will be discussed again on Thursday 24 February at the Competitiveness Council, where Member States are expected to reach a political agreement (‘general approach’).
“This is an important publication for the green transition. We have to be careful how we legislate in this area”, a European diplomat told EUROPE on Friday 18 February.
Although no technical details were discussed in Coreper, some proposals were submitted. The case of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) had already been discussed last week, when the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs and the European Commissioner for Financial Services, Mairead McGuinness (see EUROPE 12888/6), discussed the proposed directive.
In a compromise proposal, the French Presidency of the EU Council suggests provisions to ensure the principle of proportionality, allowing SMEs to report their sustainability information in a simplified system.
“There is no controversy, but one Member State has expressed some concerns. They do not want this directive to lead to an administrative overload for SMEs”, an EU diplomat said on Friday.
A further change to the original proposal is that, as a transitional measure, until 31 December 2025, persons carrying out quality assurance reviews of reporting will not need to have relevant experience in this area. Eventually they will still have to complete 8 months of practical training on the quality assurance of annual and consolidated sustainability reports.
In order to harmonise practices, the Committee of European Auditing Oversight Bodies (CEAOB) will be encouraged to adopt non-binding guidelines, pending the adoption by the European Commission of an EU-wide quality assurance standard.
See the French compromise proposal: https://aeur.eu/f/eg (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)