The European Commission has presented a law on environmental deregulation, which contains amendments to "green" directives and regulations. A number of regulations, from the Industrial Emissions Directive to the environmental management system, will be relaxed or simplified.
According to Politico, the official goal of the "environmental omnibus" is to reduce the administrative burden on businesses without affecting environmental standards. However, environmentalists consider this a departure from the EU's environmental values and a threat to the environment and biodiversity.
What concessions is the European Commission willing to make?
- Enterprises in the livestock and aquaculture sectors will not be required to report on energy, water, and material usage.
- Implementation of the updated Industrial Emissions Directive will be postponed – EU member states, institutions, and businesses have been given more time to prepare.
- The requirements of the Environmental Management System (EMS) will also be relaxed. Currently, documentation must be submitted for each facility, but in the future, reporting at the company level will be sufficient.
- The abolition of the SCIP database (on substances of concern in products). The European Commission stated that this system only created significant administrative expenses. At the same time, SCIP failed in its main function – informing recyclers about hazardous substances in goods and products was ineffective.
- When exporting to other EU countries, manufacturers will no longer be required to appoint authorized representatives in each country, as currently required by the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy. The European Commission also proposes that reporting be done only once a year.
- Simplification of the implementation of the Birds Directive and their habitats. In 2026, the EU will conduct a stress test of the regulation and provide recommendations on how to further ease its requirements.
Support and criticism
Some MPs and business associations welcome the changes. They see them as reducing bureaucratic pressure on business.
However, environmental communities and experts hold the opposite view. They believe that such decisions by the European Commission will nullify the European community's environmental progress and weaken standards that were already not strict enough.
"The decisions focus only on reducing costs for businesses, ignoring the much higher price of pollution, ecosystem degradation, and climate disasters," said the WWF.
"The Birds and Habitats Directive is the cornerstone of nature conservation policy in Europe. Weakening these standards now will not only destroy decades of progress, but also jeopardize a future in which ecosystems and the communities that depend on them remain dangerously vulnerable," said Sophie Reischhart of BirdLife Europe.
Earlier, EcoPolitic reported that the EU had postponed the implementation of the key forest protection law. This refers to EUDR, which was intended to limit deforestation by agricultural producers.
