Paris, Brussels, 24 June 2025. The newly adopted negotiating mandate is far from being a compromise between simplification and maintaining effective corporate regulations. The adopted position leaves European corporate sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements drastically devoid of their original purpose: to prevent and remedy human rights and environmental abuses committed by multinational corporations.
The adopted proposal, which establishes the European Council’s position for future negotiations with the European Parliament, confirms the “business as usual” approach promoted by business lobbies and the far right, with the support of certain member states, among them France.
While many stakeholders, (civil society, trade unions, businesses, economists, and the European Central Bank, had warned of the harmful consequences of Omnibus I, the Council of the European Union has decided to strictly adhere to a misguided vision of how to make life easier for businesses.
By proposing to raise application thresholds for sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements, the Council decided to go even further than the proposal to relax requirements made by the European Commission.
– Taking up France’s argument, the Council would like the EU sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements to apply only to companies with over 5,000 employees and an annual turnover above 1.5 billion euros. This would reduce the number of companies concerned to a handful..
– By proposing to limit the scope of reporting requirements to direct business partners while claiming to follow a "risk-based approach", the Council is undermining the effectiveness of the system. The reduction in scope would have catastrophic consequences on the ground, as the most serious human rights and environmental violations are often committed by business partners that are beyond "tier 1".
– Civil liability, a fundamental pillar of due diligence, has not been spared either. Far from simplifying matters, the Council has aligned itself with the Commission’s proposal to remove the EU harmonised liability regime, a move that would lead to the fragmentation of legal regimes across Member States, to the detriment of both victims and companies.
– Finally, EU Member States took the liberty of further weakening climate provisions with respect to sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements. The original directive required companies to adopt and implement climate transition plans. The Council’s newly adopted position clearly diminishes the objectives of the plans. Companies are allowed to not fulfill their commitments if they deem the efforts required as unreasonable.
By agreeing to considerably reduce the scope of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the Council would exclude thousands of European companies from the system and encourage greenwashing.
This sequence of events calls for equally disturbing observations: politics is cutting itself off from its citizens and EU bodies veering towards the extreme right is becoming a reality.
The Council has yet again bowed to pressure from lobbies such as Mouvement des Entreprises de France (Medef) and Fédération Bancaire Française (FBF) which are taking advantage of the current instability to impose their deregulation agenda. Private interests are taking precedence over fundamental rights and the future of the planet.
In addition to the consequences for the environment and society, the relaxation of requirements comes at a time when the far right is gaining ground in Europe and openly applauds the attack against the Green Pact.
Our organisations also denounce the deliberate silence of France’s leading government officials considering the opinion of the vast majority of citizens and the demands of civil society organisations.. Neither Emmanuel Macron nor François Bayrou have agreed to sit down with civil society to discuss the issues.
Given the serious and damaging consequences of the proposed changes, our organizations call on the European Parliament and every stakeholder who has taken a stand against Omnibus I, to unite and combat the reactionary "business as usual" approach.