Dozens of lawyers and economists have issued strong warnings of attempts by the European Commission (EC) to weaken the laws of the accountability of the companies, and said that they have to reduce the measures to reduce the obligation to account for the accountability of companies and environmental protection and to lead to higher costs for companies and society.
Under pressure from company lobbyists, the EC discusses the redesign of rules that regulate and report its activities. Last month, both French President Emmanuel Macron and the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have their campaign against the corporate sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), which covers, escalates and claims that the provisions threatened to not make European businesses competitive. In a speech, Macron told BUSINESS managers that the CSDDD should be “completely switched off” and that the support for an EC “Omnibus simplification package” should be expressed that eliminates the requirements for companies to monitor their pension chains to violations, remove the obligatory climate transition plans and the commitment mechanisms, including the provisions for civil law Liability, would weaken considerably.
But legal and economists, environmental organizations and companies as well as countries such as Sweden And Denmarkhave united to defend the regulations.
“The members of the European Parliament should not be fooled if you remove this article that this will somehow lead to a reduction in regulatory stress,” said Thom Testleck, Associate Professor of Law and Finance at the University of Oxford and the founding director of the Oxford Sustainable Law program. “What will come in his place is a very disputed landscape and a different implementation of the national requirements.
In May, Weuter and more than 30 other lawyers sent a letter to the EC Warning that the scrapping of the regulations creates a number of new financial and legal risks for companies and would make it more difficult for them to achieve their sustainability and climate goals. The scientists warn that “without regulations, without regulations, corporate climate transitions become more disordered and more expensive”.
In addition, according to Best Cader, many European companies have already taken steps to comply with the regulations. Indeed 11 large brands at the beginning of the year, including Ikea (F500E #85, as Ingka), Maersk (F500E #70) and Unilever (F500E #49) supported the CSDDD, the signing and the open letter, in which it was found: “Investments and competitiveness will be based on political certainty and legal predictions.
“Companies have already started to set up reporting reporting in order to align themselves with the regulatory package” Assets. “Many investments in the regulatory architecture were made in the assumption that this would exist for a long time. If you change this regulation and go beyond the simplification, take the risk that all of these investments will take the drain.”
Legalists are not the only experts who alert themselves in the plans of the EC. In May, too, more than 90 prominent economists omnibus proposals and the desire emphasized the claim that sustainability provisions have impairing European competitiveness. Instead, they refer to other factors for the economic challenges of Europe, including the energy prize crisis after the invasion of Ukraine in Russia, the decline in global demand, the wage stagnation and the chronic sub -investment in public infrastructure.
The explanation of the economists emphasizes that the implementation costs for sustainability regulations are minimal, and citing a study by the London School of Economics, which estimated compliance with compliance costs for large companies at only 0.009% of sales. They argue that the advantages of the regulations far outweigh such modest expenses and determine that with an estimated 750 -billion -euro investment gap in the event of sustainable initiatives, the weakening of the requirements for sustainability reporting of decisive programs such as the Clean Industrial Deal and discourage private investments in sustainable projects.
“Economic decisions are political decisions,” said Johannes Jäger, professor at the BFI -Wien University of Applied Sciences. “With the Omnibus proposal, the European Commission decides to reward short-sighted corporate lobby work at the expense of people, planets and long-term economic resilience.”
Up to this point, many critics of the Omnibus package have classified it as opportunistic and say that it was an attempt to both imitate US President Donald Trump and be able to bring in Europe, but do a program of comprehensive deregulation throughout America. US companies were at the top of the lobbying to undermine the CSDDD, with guard dogs claimed that the investment giant Blackrock had helped Extract an exception From the guideline for large financial companies.
“With the Omnibus proposal, the European Commission decides to reward short-sighted corporate lobby work at the expense of people, planets and long-term economic resilience.”Johannes Jäger, Professor of the Science of the University of Applied Sciences BFI Wiener
Such actions have motivated other European financial leaders to gather the CSDDD. In February more than 200 financial institutions that represent assets of 7.6 trillion dollars. Asked the EC to maintain strong sustainability standards. Aleksandra Palinska, Executive Director of the European Sustainable Investment Forum, warned that the bus would limit the access of the investor to comparable and reliable sustainability data and impair their ability to scale investments for industrial decarbonization. ”
Instead of following Trump and doubling the deregulation, European financial experts have asked the EU to maintain their determination together with their reputation for the probability. In January, François Gemenne, professor to HEC Paris and senior author of the Intergovern Mental Panel, said on the sixth evaluation report of climate change, “the best answer to the guidelines implemented in the USA is not to weaken the EU -Green Agenda.
The best agreed and said that the Omnibus proposals harm the reputation of the European Union as a rational actor. “The European Union does not turn out to be a reliable regulatory authority because they flip in the face of the changing political winds,” he said. In turbulent times, he suggested that a strong stabilizing influence was required. “We should include our own course based on our assessment of the basics.”
Apart from the legal and economic effects, it is the environmental and human rights effects of the proposed changes to the EC that have drawn most of the fire. In March, more than 360 global NGOs and civil society groups made a joint explanation against the bus, in which he found that the EC President Ursula von der Leyen was “human rights, employee rights and environmental protection for dangerous deregulation of human rights”.
“The European Union does not turn out to be a reliable regulatory authority because they become fliping in view of the changing political winds …”Thom Best, extraordinary professor of law and finance, University of Oxford and founding director of the Oxford Sustainable Law Program
In comments that accompanied the letter, said Marion Lupine, political officer of the European coalition for corporate justice: “The message of Brussels could not be clearer: the industry interests are in the first place, while people and the planet are left behind … hundreds of civil society organizations around the world are in the world – now for the foregation, and by no means, and in no way without this, and without this to avenge an accountability for invoices. ”
While the European Parliament’s proposal is moving, the main question of whether the EU institutions preserve its original ambitions to lead Europe through its sustainability transition or to increase the lobbying of companies. The result will probably have far -reaching effects on the accountability of companies, human rights and the fight against climate change.
