On Thursday 27 November, the European Ombudsman, Teresa Anjinho, took the view that the procedural shortcomings observed in the drafting of three legislative proposals concerning corporate sustainability due diligence (CSDDD), countering migrant smuggling and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) amount to a case of maladministration.
Considering these proposals to be urgent, the European Commission had omitted to apply a number of internal rules relating to impact assessments and public consultations, in line with the ‘Better Regulation’ principle.
For example, for the ‘Omnibus I’ proposal to simplify the ‘CSDDD’ Directive (see EUROPE 13757/32), the EU institution reduced the duration of the inter-service consultation to less than 24 hours over a weekend. With regard to the CAP and the ‘Omnibus I’ proposal, it has not provided any documents proving that it had assessed the consistency of these legislative initiatives with the EU’s climate objectives, as required by the ‘Climate Law’. In addition, the proposals to step up the fight against migrant smuggling were not the subject of an impact assessment.
“Certain principles of good law-making cannot be compromised even for the sake of urgency”, Ms Anjinho said in a statement. She called on the Commission to “improve” its internal rules applying the ‘Better Regulation’ principle “so that preparation of urgent legislation remains transparent and evidence-based”, said the Ombudsman.
See the European Ombudsman’s report and recommendations: https://aeur.eu/f/jpl (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)