After three months of rushed decision-making, the European Commission presented its Omnibus Simplification Package and proposed major rollbacks to the EU’s corporate sustainability legislation, threatening to undermine Europe's leadership in sustainable business practices and ESG reporting.
“With the Omnibus proposals, the EU Commission not only proposes a step backwards, but it also undermines Europe's competitive advantage in the green transition", said Filip Gregor, Head of Frank Bold’s Responsible Companies Section. “ESG data is critical in addressing the challenges EU business will be facing - from decarbonisation to digitalisation and harnessing AI to build up resilience. Blind deregulation will harm the EU economy in the long-term, and will especially punish those companies leading on the sustainability transition.”
“The proposed changes to the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) would effectively dismantle the law before it's even started to apply, without presenting any proper evidence" said Julia Otten, Senior Policy Officer at Frank Bold. "Addressing crucial issues like child labour and forced labour requires targeted oversight beyond direct business partners in the value chain. It is absurd that the Commission is proposing to limit this. The sudden shift appears to prioritise short-term industry pressures over long-term sustainability goals and the protection of human rights.”
EU green finance efforts will take a major hit, because banks and investors will not have the data they need to make informed decisions. The European Banking Authority just published a few days ago a report warning against the data gaps "Granular and comparable data that will become available based on fully implemented CSRD is expected to allow significant advancements for corporate exposures in the coming years". With the moratorium on the CSRD and changes to the scope, not only is the EU Commission slowing down green finance, but it is also leading to misdirection of green finance towards supporting business as usual.
Frank Bold urges the European Commission and EU Member States to maintain its commitment to robust sustainability reporting and due diligence frameworks, ensuring European businesses remain competitive in an increasingly sustainability-focused global economy.
The Omnibus Simplification Package will now be handed over to the co-legislators, the EU Parliament and the EU Council, which will each have to formulate a position on the proposed texts in the upcoming months.
In mid-December, the European Commission acknowledged a large part of the arguments put forward by the Czechia in an effort to prevent the expansion and continuation of illegal mining at the Turów mine in Poland, that endangers the sources of drinking water for thousands of people in the Liberec region and, according to new studies, has serious impacts on groundwater in Germany as well. Frank Bold's lawyers, who defend the interests of Czech citizens, have long been involved in the case.
The Frank Bold Society and the Neighbourhood Association Uhelná called on the Czech government today to be more consistent in its negotiations with Poland over mining at the Turów brown coal mine. According to both organisations, the government did not have enough information or time to prepare an agreement that would truly protect Czech interests. Moreover, the government has acted in a non-transparent manner by failing to inform the public in advance of the terms of the agreement being prepared, which should lead to the withdrawal of the action against Poland at the EU Court of Justice. The organisations have therefore drawn up a document with seven basic demands on which the Czech side should insist.
The European Commission recently introduced a draft of the revised EU ETS Directive which, among other things, proposes that 100 % of ETS revenues should be used for environmental measures. We welcome this idea but we’re also sceptical about how the ETS revenues are used in the Czech Republic. Therefore, we have prepared an analysis mapping the use of ETS revenues in Czech Republic and sent it to the European Commission as an input for the recent public consultation. The main conclusions are presented below.
