On Thursday 18 September, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said: “We urgently need to get the green light from the Member States and the European Parliament” on what are known as ‘omnibus’ regulatory simplification proposals. For the moment, only the ‘omnibus’ suspending the CSRD and CSDDD directives has been adopted, and the one simplifying the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) is in the process of being adopted. The other texts are still under negotiation. The Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU hopes to reach a political agreement in principle between the Member States in the next few weeks on ‘Omnibus IV’, which concerns the creation of a status for ‘mid-caps’ (see EUROPE 13711/11).
No agreement has yet been reached, as a number of countries – led by France and Germany – want to extend the scope to cover these ‘mid-caps’. Instead of a threshold of 750 employees and €150 million in annual sales, the two countries are proposing to go up to 1,000 employees and €450 million in sales. The aim is to move towards a more robust simplification measure that will affect more companies.
For other Member States, on the other hand, such an enlargement would even reduce the effectiveness of support measures for the companies that need them most: SMEs. These reluctant states would prefer to stick with the Commission’s proposal. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)