The outline of the proposed ‘omnibus’ text to simplify certain European laws, due to be published on Wednesday 26 February, is becoming clearer, but some of the details remain a mystery. While awaiting the verdict, the political groups are expressing their priorities and fears, and there are still major disagreements. S&D, the Greens/EFA and The Left fear deregulation, while the EPP welcomes the Commission’s announcements.
Reducing the administrative burden, particularly for small businesses, is a priority for the centre-right group. The members of the EPP therefore welcome the future amendments to the CSDD and CSR directives, the regulation on the European taxonomy and the regulation on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).
“We would have liked to postpone the application of the CSR and CSDD directives by two years, but this may not be the case in the Commission’s proposal”, Peter Liese (EPP, German) told Agence Europe.
There is still some doubt as to the extent of the changes that will be proposed on 26 February. With regard to companies’ reporting obligations, the Commission should accede to stakeholders’ requests to reduce the volume of data to be reported under the CSRD, without any certainty as to the details of the data.
According to Peter Liese, the Commission is also planning to create a simplification tool for small businesses that have to provide a certain amount of information to their customers. Some large companies in the EU fulfil their reporting obligations by simply imposing significant obligations on their smaller suppliers, according to the MEP, who believes that this cannot continue.
On the other hand, the spirit of the ‘omnibus’ package is criticised by the S&D, which fears deregulation in these four texts. “For our group, it is essential to approach this simplification exercise without questioning our ambition in key European values as well as to ensure regulatory certainty and stability”, writes Iratxe García Pérez, the group’s chair in the European Parliament, in a letter to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
While the Social Democrats are open to discussing changes to the CSRD, they reject the idea of reopening the CSDDD. “We categorically oppose any attempt to include the CSDDD in the ‘omnibus’ proposal”, insists Iratxe García Pérez.
Her group fears that human rights and environmental obligations will be reduced so that certain abuses will no longer fall within the scope of the text and will therefore no longer be the subject of corporate civil liability.
For Peter Liese, the S&D letter is “a slap in the face for SMEs throughout Europe”.
CBAM, a more consensual subject. After several weeks of doubts, CBAM should indeed be part of the first ‘omnibus’ package, with one major change: a change in the way the application thresholds work. As the threshold of €150 for imports was not considered relevant during the information phase, the Commission should propose basing itself on the CO2 volume of imports, rather than their value in euros.
This will exempt 91% of companies currently subject to CBAM that import CBAM products in very small quantities.
Extending the scope to cover other sectors and more downstream products will only come later.
The political groups could agree on these initial changes: the EPP says it finds these adjustments necessary and useful. Furthermore, on Friday 21 February, Peter Liese denied that his group was calling for a postponement of the CBAM.
On the other hand, Socialist Mohammed Chahim (Dutch), who was CBAM rapporteur at the European Parliament, was open to this type of change, which he felt could improve the tool’s effectiveness (see EUROPE 13576/10).
As in the case of the CBAM, the issue of export support could be sidestepped if no solution is found that is compatible with the rules of the World Trade Organization. But a number of European Parliament and industry representatives are still calling for solutions. “If you produce green steel, it’s more expensive. You need to find new international markets at a time when carbon-intensive steel is quite rightly being redirected away from the EU. So we need to find a solution for our exports”, argued Eurofer’s Managing Director Axel Eggert on Friday 21 February. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)