THE BIG EU DEREGULATION

The document is a joint statement from over 360 organisations condemning the European Commission's 'Omnibus proposal' as a 'dangerous deregulation' effort. The signatories argue that the proposal undermines the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and the Taxonomy Regulation. They claim the proposal would reduce corporate accountability, limit access to justice for victims of human rights and environmental abuses, and diminish the quality of sustainability data by excluding a large number of companies from reporting obligations. The statement calls on EU leadership to block these changes and maintain the EU's commitment to becoming the first climate-neutral continent by 2050.

• The Omnibus proposal is described as a 'dangerous deregulation' that deprioritises human rights, workers' rights, and environmental protections, potentially undermining the EU's goal of being the first climate-neutral continent by 2050.
• The proposal would significantly weaken the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) by reducing civil liability and access to justice, removing representative actions for NGOs and trade unions, and allowing EU courts to apply the laws of the country where harm occurred instead of national law.
• Corporate accountability under the CSDDD would be reduced by limiting due diligence assessments to direct business partners, removing the obligation to implement Climate Transition Plans, and reducing the frequency of monitoring effectiveness from annually to every five years.
• The proposal would further erode CSDDD protections by removing the minimum sanction cap of 5% of turnover, eliminating the requirement to terminate contracts in cases of abuse, and restricting stakeholder engagement to only those 'directly' affected.
• The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) would be weakened by postponing application for certain businesses by two years and excluding approximately 80% of companies from reporting obligations, which the authors claim will reduce the reliability of sustainability data.
• The authors allege the Omnibus proposal was developed through a 'rushed and opaque process' that ignored the Commission's own Better Regulation Guidelines, featuring a closed-doors round-table where company representatives outnumbered trade unions and NGOs.

APA

ClientEarth (2025). THE BIG EU DEREGULATION. https://www.clientearth.org/media/ursh5beg/joint-cso-statement-reacting-to-omnibus-publication.pdf

Chicago

ClientEarth. THE BIG EU DEREGULATION. 2025. https://www.clientearth.org/media/ursh5beg/joint-cso-statement-reacting-to-omnibus-publication.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=ClientEarth |title=THE BIG EU DEREGULATION |date=10 March 2025 |url=https://www.clientearth.org/media/ursh5beg/joint-cso-statement-reacting-to-omnibus-publication.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{clientearth2025big, author = {{ClientEarth}}, title = {{THE BIG EU DEREGULATION}}, publisher = {ClientEarth}, year = {2025}, month = mar, url = {https://www.clientearth.org/media/ursh5beg/joint-cso-statement-reacting-to-omnibus-publication.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }