Lobbying - Comment le secteur privé s'est accaparé la directive Omnibus

The report analyzes how the 'Omnibus I' law, presented on February 26, 2025, by Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné, rolls back key environmental and social protections. It details a significant imbalance in the consultation process, where the vast majority of meetings were held with private economic interests while civil society was largely excluded. A specific case study highlights how the French asset management lobby successfully pushed for the removal of a clause that would have required the Commission to study the necessity of regulating financial services under the CSDDD.

• The 'Omnibus I' law, presented on February 26, 2025, is characterized as a deregulation effort that undermines the CSDDD and CSRD, contradicting previous claims by Stéphane Séjourné that his goal was to 'débureaucratiser' without 'déréguler'.
• Proposed changes to the CSDDD include limiting the 'chain of activity' to direct ('tier 1') partners, extending the frequency of company self-assessments from every year to every 5 years, and removing the obligation to implement climate transition plans.
• Proposed changes to the CSRD would reduce the number of affected companies by over 80% by limiting the scope to firms with more than 1,000 employees and 50 million in turnover, while also removing sectoral reporting standards.
• Analysis of meetings between December 1, 2024, and October 1, 2025, shows that Stéphane Séjourné's interactions were overwhelmingly dominated by private interests: 100 out of 103 meetings (97.08%) were with private actors with economic or financial expectations.
• The cabinet of the Executive Vice-President also showed a strong bias toward corporate interests, with 165 out of 190 meetings (87%) conducted with companies or private interest groups, including MEDEF, Société Générale, and BusinessEurope.
• The French Association of Asset Management (AFG), representing firms with 4,500 billion euros in assets, explicitly lobbied for the definitive removal of Article 36(1) of the CSDDD, which would have allowed for the regulation of financial services and investment activities.
• The 'Omnibus I' proposal is reported to satisfy 70% of the demands made by the MEDEF lobby.

APA

Reclaim Finance (2025). Lobbying - Comment le secteur privé s'est accaparé la directive Omnibus. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Note-lobbying-Reclaim-Finance.pdf

Chicago

Reclaim Finance. Lobbying - Comment le secteur privé s'est accaparé la directive Omnibus. 2025. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Note-lobbying-Reclaim-Finance.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Reclaim Finance |title=Lobbying - Comment le secteur privé s'est accaparé la directive Omnibus |date=October 2025 |url=https://reclaimfinance.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Note-lobbying-Reclaim-Finance.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{reclaimfinance2025lobbying, author = {{Reclaim Finance}}, title = {{Lobbying - Comment le secteur privé s'est accaparé la directive Omnibus}}, institution = {Reclaim Finance}, year = {2025}, month = oct, url = {https://reclaimfinance.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Note-lobbying-Reclaim-Finance.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }