The European Parliament’s rapporteur on one of the most eagerly awaited ‘omnibus’ texts, Jörgen Warborn (EPP, Swedish), wants to go even further than the European Commission in simplifying the CSRD and CSDDD Directives governing the sustainability of companies and their due diligence. In a first draft of his report, he proposed 82 amendments, in which he attempts to further harmonise the rules of the texts in question and revise companies’ obligations with a view to scaling them down.
The most telling example of the rapporteur’s proposals concerns the scope. He proposes a clear alignment of the thresholds for application of the various Directives covered by the ‘omnibus’. The obligations would only apply to companies with more than 3,000 employees and a turnover in excess of €450 million.
This is a game-changing amendment to the CSRD Directive on corporate sustainability, since the European Commission has proposed a threshold of 1,000 employees and €50 million turnover.
Corporate due diligence. Jörgen Warborn is in favour of a radical simplification of the CSDDD. He aligns the text, for example, with the European Commission, which has limited due diligence obligations to direct business partners. But he proposes an additional filter: firstly, companies will have to map the general risks in the value chain. Only transactions identified as risky during this first financial year should be subject to further analysis, and then only with direct business partners.
Another point of tension for the CSDDD is the transition plans of companies. The rapporteur proposes that the requirement for a climate transition action plan should be removed altogether.
Finally, on the question of the civil liability of companies that do not comply with the Directive, Mr Warborn aligns himself with the European Commission’s proposal to withdraw the European level and, therefore, restrict recourse to the national level.
The rapporteur would like to propose his text for adoption by Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs in October, with a view to a plenary vote in November.
In the Council of the EU, work is progressing, but there are still major differences of opinion over the key elements of the text (see EUROPE 13652/22).
See the draft report: https://aeur.eu/f/hb9 (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)