Improving the business climate by reducing the bureaucratic burden on companies “is an absolute priority for the EU economy”, declared Polish Finance Minister Andrzej Domański on Tuesday 21 January, at the end of a meeting of EU27 finance ministers (Ecofin) that he chaired.
This observation was widely shared by his counterparts during the dedicated discussion. They committed to take “significant” measures to simplify European regulations. Above all, they are anxious to see what the European Commission is planning as part of its ‘omnibus’ initiative. This should reduce the reporting burden on companies and streamline all the administrative obligations contained in the European rules (see EUROPE 13558/8).
Member States, MEPs and stakeholders have high expectations of the Commission’s forthcoming announcement, and in recent weeks the demands of each stakeholder have become clearer (see EUROPE 13561/19, 13557/25, 13551/7).
At the end of the Ecofin Council, it was clear to Andrzej Domański that some Member States do not want to simply put the brakes on the application of European legislation that could harm competitiveness at a time when the Trump administration could embark on a massive deregulation exercise.
“We believe the time to act is now”, he said at the press conference.
For Luxembourg’s minister, Gilles Roth, for example, texts that duplicate each other or lack coherence need to be tackled. This position is shared by many in the private sector.
The latest illustration of this observation is a joint declaration by the Association française des entreprises privées (AFEP) and the Deutsches Aktieinstitut calling for “rapid simplification” and “greater coherence in the legislative texts of the European Green Deal”.
For these two organisations, there is an urgent need to review the framework of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) in order to focus sustainability reporting on the essentials. They also call on the co-legislators to carry out an evaluation of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), which is not yet in force, in order to “identify and address priority areas where clarification and burden reduction are needed”.
To see the joint declaration (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/f59 (Original version in French by Léa Marchal with Mathieu Bion)