Maria Luís Albuquerque, European Commissioner for Financial Services, did her best to defend the proposed revision of the taxonomy to the European Parliament’s Committees on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and Environment, Climate and Food Safety (ENVI) on Monday 6 October.
Presented in July (see EUROPE 13674/19), the delegated act is expected to reduce the reporting requirements for companies.
“In our view, we have respected the result of such consultation and came out with a proposal which is balanced taking into account the different interests here present, because we have to consider the interests of the environment, but we also have to consider the interests of the competitiveness of our economy, which is also important. And what we are trying to provide is a balanced outcome”, the Commissioner kept emphasising.
While the Renew Europe and EPP MEPs only asked for a few clarifications, the Conservative MEPs and those on the left of the Chamber did not hold back their criticism. César Luena (S&D, Spanish) and Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, Dutch) voiced their concerns about the risks of greenwashing, particularly by oil and gas companies. “You know that in some of these approaches, this could mean that oil and gas companies, such as Shell and Total, can be excluded from reporting obligations. Is that indeed the consequence of your materiality threshold?”, Mr Eickhout questioned with annoyance.
The revision introduces a cumulative materiality threshold of 10%. This should enable companies to focus their valuation on their core activities, while ensuring transparency for investors on non-material activities. “In any case the reporting company will have to disclose all non-material activities, and if these non-material activities are fossil fuels, they will have to clearly say so. That continues to be transparent”, replied the Commissioner.
For her part, Jutta Paulus (Greens/EFA, German) was outraged that dangerous, carcinogenic, mutagenic, bioaccumulative and persistent chemicals were not taken into account. “The problem is that self-identified substances by the companies, they often say they cannot prove they have a viable alternative”, replied the Commissioner. She explained that, in this case, they will not be able to prove it, and will not be considered compliant, even if all the other activities are. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)