'Civil Society Stakeholder input to the European Commission Roundtable Consultation on Simplification'

...Please consider this statement as joint input to the European Commission Roundtable Consultations on ‘Simplification’ due to take place on 5 and 6 February...

We are deeply concerned by the current direction of policy making within the European Commission, particularly regarding the introduction of measures that can potentially weaken or undermine previously agreed legislation crucial to the EU’s sustainability goals.

In particular, we wish to state unequivocally that we firmly oppose any re-opening of previously agreed legislation, such as the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, at level one. We believe that such a move would risk creating regulatory uncertainty, jeopardising investments already made and necessary future investments, undermining rights of citizens who have been affected by companies’ operations, delaying progress, penalising companies that have already invested significantly in compliance, and eroding the trailblazing EU leadership on corporate sustainability standards.

We reaffirm our strong support for focusing on the effective application of the laws through further interpretative measures and guidance, as was foreseen and agreed...

We also take this opportunity to publicly express our concern regarding the way the "consultations" for this potentially very harmful decision-making process are being conducted. While we note that the Commission has committed to act quickly, we consider that the current approach is not in line with the European Commission’s own Better Regulation framework. The current approach, marked by the lack of a thorough impact assessment, absence of evidence, disregard of previous political consensus, and limited transparency and inadequate and business-biased stakeholder inclusion is simply inadequate in view of the nature and potentially far-reaching scope of this Omnibus initiative...

Therefore, we reiterate our firm request that the European Commission does not create further confusion and uncertainty through re-opening agreed legislative texts, but instead focuses on practical application through an inclusive and transparent process.

We would also refer you to the multiple other statements recently published which we urge that you take into consideration...

[Full letter and list of signatories available for download above]

For any organisation wishing to sign, please contact r.gardiner@worldbenchmarkingalliance.org.