On Tuesday 22 July, the European Commission launched a call for evidence with a view to drafting its ‘omnibus’ legislation to simplify current environmental legislation, due in autumn 2025.
The proposal will target legislation on the circular economy, industrial emissions and waste management in order to reduce the administrative burden on businesses. The European Commission intends to use the results of the call for evidence to identify the needs of the industries mentioned above, with a view to identifying environmental policies that could be simplified.
“Reducing the administrative burden of environmental laws will help make them more effective and ensure better environmental protection in the long run”, said the European Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, Jessika Roswall.
The forthcoming ‘omnibus’ environmental legislation is in line with the priorities set out in the ‘Competitiveness Compass’, which aims to reduce the administrative burden by at least 25% for all businesses and by at least 35% for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Rationalisation of notification obligations and acceleration and simplification of simplification procedures will also be targeted.
The European Commission is already planning to include measures relating to: - the Waste Framework Directive (removal of the database of substances of concern in products); - extended producer responsibility (simplification of the declaration and harmonisation of the rules concerning the representatives of the authorities in each Member State); - simplification of reporting obligations and promotion of digital reporting.
The call for evidence is open until 10 September. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)