The European Commission has backtracked on its intention to withdraw the Green Claims Directive (see EUROPE 13664/1), if the Council of the EU and the European Parliament agree to remove micro-enterprises from its scope.
“Last week, at the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Member States, the Polish Presidency decided to maintain micro-enterprises”, a European Commission source told Agence Europe on Monday 23 June to explain the Commission’s position.
The Commission pointed out that 30 million micro-enterprises would have been affected, i.e. 96% of all businesses. “One of the priorities of this Commission is to reduce the administrative burden for small businesses”, said the European Commission’s chief spokesperson, Paula Pinho.
The Commission is now waiting “for the next interinstitutional exchanges on this Green Claims Directive. At that point, we’ll see what happens to this amendment”, explained Paula Pinho.
However, the trilogue scheduled for Monday 23 June was cancelled by the Polish Presidency of the EU Council after a weekend of discussions with the Member States. This due to the EU Council having lost its qualified majority with the withdrawal of Italian support. “Such an announcement is not without consequences”, said a diplomatic source.
Overall confusion. On Monday, the co-legislators were still reeling from the Commission’s announcement and didn’t know where they stood. “Why organise a trilogue for a text that will be withdrawn?”, asked a diplomatic source. When the European Parliament’s co-rapporteurs, Sandro Gozi (Renew Europe, Italian) and Tiemo Wölken (S&D, German, replacing Delara Burkhardt, who has gone on maternity leave), reiterated at the press conference organised on Monday for this issue, that the raison d'être of the latest trilogue was precisely to debate the inclusion of micro-enterprises.
Parliament’s mandate on this subject was similar to that of the European Commission: to exempt micro-enterprises. With one exception: the MEPs had wanted to give micro-enterprises that wanted the option of obtaining a certificate of conformity to be able to voluntarily submit to the directive’s criteria.
“We were on the verge of finding a final, balanced compromise”, regretted Tiemo Wölken. The same goes for the EU Council, where, according to a diplomatic source, “the general feeling was that micro-enterprises would be excluded from Monday’s trilogue”.
Who decided? Sandro Gozi called on the Commission to put an end to “false pretexts”. Was the European Commission’s announcement on Friday 20 June, the day after letters from the EPP, ECR and PfE groups calling for the directive to be withdrawn, “a coincidence?” The European Parliament’s co-rapporteurs said they had the “impression that the Commission was following the instructions of three political groups”, with Sandro Gozi pointing out that the Berlaymont, the Commission’s main building, “was increasingly becoming the seat of the European People’s Party”.
A diplomatic source told Agence Europe that the Commission had informed the Member States that it was “determined to bring the trilogues to a successful conclusion during this mandate and will not give in as easily as it has done over the last five years”. However, no one expected this to result in “the announcement of the withdrawal of a proposal a few days before the trilogue”.
Can the Commission withdraw the directive? On Friday, the European Commission made it clear that withdrawing a proposal was one of its prerogatives, with Paula Pinho adding on Monday that if, under the institutional procedure, “the objective of a legislative proposal is distorted by the amendments tabled by the co-legislators, the Commission has the option of withdrawing its initial proposal”. In this case, one should be reminded that this initial proposal was submitted in 2023, under the Commission’s previous mandate, when climate and environmental objectives still took precedence over those of simplification and reducing the administrative burden, priorities of the current Commission.
MEPs considered that the European Commission had stepped outside its role as an impartial actor, as enshrined in Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. Furthermore, according to Sandro Gozi, “the Commission has no right of veto during the legislative procedure, particularly in this phase of the legislative procedure between the two legislators”. At this stage, Parliament has no plans to take legal action.
Citizens, the first victims. “We are at the stage where we want to provide a concrete solution for the competitiveness of our European businesses and the protection of our consumers”, who, according to Tiemo Wölken, will be the first victims of this situation. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)