The European Commissioner for Financial Services, Mairead McGuinness, presented, on Monday 5 December, the state of play on the development of technical selection criteria and on the work of the Platform on Sustainable Finance, during a debate in the European Parliament with the Committees on the Environment (ENVI) and on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON). MEPs criticised the institution for being late on the files.
“We need a little more fire”, said an impatient Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, Dutch) after being highly critical of the delay in the Taxonomy’s timetable. “The Commission should come up with a plan with dates”, he said.
“I don’t take your remarks as a criticism, but as facts”, acknowledged Ms McGuinness. “Our timelines haven’t worked because of the workload and the complexity of the work”, she admitted, assuring that the Commission is” now trying to advance the taxonomy forward where it seems to be effective”.
To clarify the Taxonomy, the Commission intends to publish more than 200 frequently asked questions to help companies fulfil their reporting obligations under the taxonomy. This will be accompanied by new online tools, including improved market feedback on usability.
Similarly, Pernille Weiss (EPP, Danish) expressed concern about when the Commission will publish guidance for aligning companies with the Taxonomy, as companies are already waiting, she said. Ms Mc Guinness said that the guidelines would be published before the end of the year.
The Platform on Sustainable Finance, a stakeholder group advising the Commission on the EU Taxonomy (see EUROPE 13072/21), has raised concerns. Mr Eickhout noted that many participants had withdrawn.
“It will be a smaller Platform - so we are looking at a composition of 35 members”, explained Ms McGuinness, assuring that “a smaller platform will be as inclusive”.
SFDR. The European Commissioner was reassuring about the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), which came into force in March last year. “In practice, you know that the market is using SFDR more as a labelling scheme”, she noted. To address the “lack of clarity, which creates opportunities for greenwashing”, the Commission plans to publish a first set of questions and answers early next year to clarify specific issues.
This clarification, together with the regulatory technical standards (see EUROPE 13034/8) will come into force in January 2023.
Aurore Lalucq (S&D, French) expressed scepticism about the effectiveness of this clarification. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)