Nothing is as it seems, or easy these days – especially in policymaking or sustainability. Put those together and you get chaos and uncertainty as demonstrated by the EU Omnibus arguments, er, negotiations. Net Zero Investor reported last week
“A fierce debate on Monday night showed that the controversial omnibus will struggle to reach consensus in the highly divided European Parliament… Andreas Rashe, professor at Copenhagen Business School, argued that the bitterly divided political factions indicate a highly uncertain future for the proposals.”
The party-line divisions are:
- “Centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) have called for an ‘urgent procedure’ on the stop-the-clock proposal. They have also said ‘more is needed’ and that it is necessary to push for further changes in the upcoming negotiations.
- The centre-left Socials and Democrats (S&D) welcomed the principle of simplification but said the omnibus delivers deregulation rather than simplification. MEP Lara Wolters said, ‘This is not a simplification of EU rules. This is the simplification of a debate.’
- The Greens see the omnibus as a massive deregulation that undermines the green transition. They also stressed that it ‘puts off investors who were already on the path of change’.
- The European Conservatives and Reformist Group emphasised that the omnibus is a small and insufficient step, as indicated by one MEP, who said: ‘Cut, cut, cut, and once again cut. We have to throw a lot of Directives into the trash, where they belong.’ In a similar tone, the Europe of Sovereign Nations group suggested ‘removing obligations from all businesses’ and that policymakers ‘need a chainsaw rather than a letter opener.'”
In January, I wondered what influence the new US presidential administration could have on the EU’s deliberations. It is looking like that may be a bigger factor than initially expected. Escalating tariff wars between the US and EU and newly-proposed US Senate legislation from Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) to “prohibit entities integral to the national interests of the United States from participating in any foreign sustainability due diligence regulation, including the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive of the European Union, and for other purposes” may seriously complicate EU negotiations. Hagerty’s bill is arguably more symbolic than reality as there isn’t a legal mechanism that would allow a company to avoid complying with legal requirements of countries in which the company operates/owns facilities.
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