The Polish Presidency of the EU Council has attempted to take account of the comments made by Member States on the ‘omnibus’ initiative to amend the directives on corporate due diligence (CSDDD) and on corporate sustainability reporting (CSRD). It presented the Member States with a second compromise text, which was discussed at expert level in the Council on Monday 19 May and of which Agence Europe has received a copy. However, further work is still needed to reach a common position on this ‘omnibus’.
The EU27 are divided on fundamental issues of the text, such as its scope. French President, Emmanuel Macron, also agreed with the opinion of the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, on Monday 19 May, on the very existence of the CSDDD directive. This “has not just to be postponed for one year, but to be put off the table”, according to the French President.
This option is not being considered by the Council at this stage, but the drive to weaken the directive is clearly visible in the work being done.
For example, for the CSRD directive on sustainable reporting, the second compromise insists on the possibility for companies not to disclose information that could be intellectual property, know-how or trade secrets.
The emphasis is also on protecting small businesses: organisations with fewer than 1000 employees should be able to decline certain requests for information made by larger companies.
Only the issue of corporate civil liability at European level is being defended by several countries, which are arguing for clear, harmonised case law across the EU27. This is the case for Belgium, Spain, Finland and even France.
However, in view of the reluctance of other countries, the Polish Presidency has left this article in square brackets for the time being, in its second compromise text.
See the second compromise: https://aeur.eu/f/gx6 (Original version in French by Léa Marchal and Solenn Paulic)