{"id":423109,"date":"2025-04-01T14:37:02","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T12:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/04\/01\/rinvio-norme-ue-sostenibilita-aziendale\/"},"modified":"2025-04-02T15:55:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T13:55:14","slug":"postponement-of-eu-corporate-sustainability-rules-divides-the-pro-european-majority-epp-and-liberals-align-with-the-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/04\/01\/postponement-of-eu-corporate-sustainability-rules-divides-the-pro-european-majority-epp-and-liberals-align-with-the-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Postponement of EU corporate sustainability rules divides the pro-European majority; EPP and liberals align with the right"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – The European Parliament<\/strong>\u00a0approved\u00a0the urgent procedure to express itself on postponing<\/a> the implementation of two critical\u00a0directives related to the Green Deal, those on social and environmental reporting requirements (CSRD) and corporate sustainability supervision (CSDD). The vote the day after tomorrow (April 3) promises to be decisive for the balance in the Strasbourg Chamber: with 48 hours to go, there is no agreement between the formations at the center of the political spectrum<\/strong>, the Populars (EPP), Socialists (S&D), and Liberals (Renew).<\/p>\n

The pro-European majority already split over the use of the urgency\u00a0procedure proposed by the EPP and approved today (April 1) with 427 votes in favor, 221 against, and 14 abstentions. The EPP and Renew aligned with the right wing (ECR, Patriots, and Sovereignists), while the S&D and the Greens with the European Left<\/strong>. Numbers in hand, the result was overwhelming. In fact, except for\u00a0The Left,\u00a0in principle, Socialists and Greens could have supported the fast-track vote on the proposal put forward by the European Commission as part of the Omnibus I<\/a> simplification package, which includes postponing social and environmental impact monitoring and mitigation requirements for European companies by one year (from 2027 to 2028) and social and environmental reporting standards by two years (from 2025 to 2027).<\/p>\n

However, provided they agreed with the populars on some guarantees on the substantive integrity of the directives<\/strong>, whose implementation Brussels not only wants to postpone but also water down the content and corporate requirements.<\/p>\n

Before today’s vote came the surprise announcement by the S&D group’s president, Iratxe Garcia Perez<\/strong>: “We will vote against it because we have not been able to find an agreement among the pro-European majority in this Assembly,” she told reporters. The Socialist leader explained that despite negotiations that have been going on for weeks “on the whole (Omnibus) package, currently,\u00a0we do not have an agreement on a formal and structured cooperation<\/strong> between the four pro-European groups (EPP, S&D, Renew, and Greens, Ed.<\/em>).” The stance of the S&D is to “find the best possible solution to simplify bureaucracy,” Garcia Perez pointed out. “We want to help our companies comply with European legislation, and we firmly believe\u00a0there is ample room for negotiation to achieve this simplification.”<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
Left Valerie Hayer, Renew’s group leader, and middle Iratxe Garcia Perez, S&D group leader, before the voting session at the Strasbourg Chamber, 01\/04\/25<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n

According to the Socialists, the accelerated procedure loses meaning since, so far, negotiations have failed, and further talks are needed. Renew’s group leader, Valerie Hayer,<\/strong> thinks otherwise, confident that the “discussions we are having right now with the pro-European groups will be finalized by Thursday.” The Liberals supported using the urgency\u00a0procedure “to send a signal to businesses,” Hayer said. The signal is also political because Renew did not hesitate\u00a0and sided with the right and far-right groups in the European Parliament. The Liberal leader stressed that “the real vote is on Thursday.\u00a0We will use the hours ahead to find a compromise<\/strong> and make sure that all European groups are on board.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0In addition to the Socialists, the Greens, who voted compactly against the urgency\u00a0procedure despite a “spirit open to compromise,” as Hayer noted, should also be pulled on board. In reality, backed by\u00a0the liberals and protected\u00a0by the conservatives, patriots, and sovereignists, the Populars can call the shots<\/strong>. They are unlikely to give up on substantially changing the directives,\u00a0approved<\/a>\u00a0after exhausting negotiations among the EU co-legislators\u00a0at the end of the last legislature.\u00a0The EPP has repeatedly reiterated that postponing the regulations is just “the first step.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

\"Nicola<\/a>
ECR co-president, Nicola Procaccini (photo: Philippe Stirnweiss\/European Parliament)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n

ECR co-president Fratelli d’Italia’s\u00a0Nicola Procaccini<\/strong> also spoke of “another step” but “toward the\u00a0demolition of the socialist framework\u00a0of the Green Deal<\/strong>\u00a0that the left sought in the last legislature and\u00a0that came out defeated in\u00a0today’s vote.”<\/p>\n

It was a victory\u00a0for the ECR, which last night in the Environment Committee (ENVI) saw rejected – along with the EPP – a motion to cut funding to the multi-year LIFE program,<\/strong> the EU’s financial instrument for\u00a0environmental and climate action. The right-wing axis, which is now compact\u00a0in fighting the Green Deal, has been claiming for months — based on largely unsubstantiated allegations — that the European Commission allegedly handsomely paid several environmental NGOs\u00a0to lobby the European Parliament. In the ENVI committee, however, the liberals sided with the progressive front<\/strong> and three free-shooters from the EPP. The motion was defeated by just one vote, proving how crucial the stance of Reneww and the compactness of the EPP are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Socialists, Greens, and Left opposed the emergency procedure, which passed with 427 votes in favor, 221 against, and 14 abstentions. “There is no agreement on the content” of the Omnibus package, S&D admitted. Thursday’s vote on the postponement of the CSRD and CSDD is already a watershed for the balance in the European Parliament<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":423101,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25706],"tags":[30884,26802,25905,26708],"class_list":["post-423109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-green-economy-en","tag-business-sustainability-en","tag-due-diligence-en","tag-green-deal-en","tag-session-plenary-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423109"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":423309,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423109\/revisions\/423309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}