The complainants, environmental non-governmental organisations, raised concerns about how the European Commission prepared proposals to amend EU regulations related to the Common Agricultural Policy. In particular, they raised concerns with how the Commission consulted stakeholders and with its failure to carry out an impact assessment, as required under its internal rules ('Better Regulation'), as well as its failure to carry out a climate consistency assessment, as required under European climate law.

Following an inquiry, the Ombudsman decided to issue joint findings in this case with two other cases. Those cases concerned similar issues in relation to proposals for new EU rules on countering migrant smuggling and amended EU rules simplifying sustainability requirements for businesses.

The Ombudsman found shortcomings in how the Commission prepared all these legislative proposals. In particular, she found the Commission had applied a particularly broad definition of ‘urgency’, failed to sufficiently justify invoking urgency to derogate from its internal decision-making rules, and failed to document its derogations from these rules. She also found it had not put in place a procedure to ensure the transparent, evidence-based, and inclusive preparation of ‘urgent’ legislative proposals and that it failed to keep records of climate consistency assessments.

The Ombudsman recommended the Commission formally define ‘urgent’ situations that justify a derogation from the rules and establish a procedure to ensure the urgent preparation of legislative proposals still complies with the principles of a transparent, evidence-based, and inclusive law-making process. To assist the Commission with this task, the Ombudsman made four suggestions, which include clarifying its stakeholder consultation rules for urgent proposals and ensuring that the evidence supporting its proposals is published in good time to enable public debate before new rules are adopted.

The Commission agreed to reflect on defining what constitutes ‘urgent’ situations as part of its upcoming revision of the Better Regulation rules and to record and publish its reasons for applying any derogations. It also agreed to ensure targeted consultations on urgent proposals and to publish the evidence supporting proposals in good time.

The Ombudsman welcomed the overall constructive reply of the Commission but noted that it is not yet clear how exactly the Commission will implement her recommendations and suggestions. She indicated that she would continue to monitor this issue via complaints once the Commission has finalised the revision of the Better Regulation rules.