At the end of a meeting of the EU Council’s working party of environment experts on Friday 28 November, a qualified majority of Member States does not seem likely to be achieved in order to move forward with negotiations on the ‘green claims’ directive, aimed at combating greenwashing.
This standstill comes after the European Commission threatened in the summer to scrap the proposal, but then changed its mind (see EUROPE 13665/11).
Following the Commission’s initial change of direction, the final session of inter-institutional negotiations (‘trilogue’), scheduled for 25 June, was cancelled. The Danish Presidency of the EU Council was due to present a new mandate, which, according to our information, failed to gather the necessary support. The Commission still has the option of definitively withdrawing its legislative proposal, subject to certain conditions, such as a lack of progress in the negotiations.
For the European Parliament’s co-rapporteur, Sandro Gozi (Renew Europe, Italian), the Commission bears a great deal of responsibility in this matter. “Our position and our criticism of the Commission in June remain the same, because we had all the conditions for a solution that was simple, effective and protective,” he told Agence Europe. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)