President European Commission

 

Dear President,

I have received a complaint brought by eight civil society organisations[1] against the European Commission.

The complaint is about the Commission’s alleged failure to comply with its ‘Better Regulation Guidelines’ in preparing the legislative proposal to amend the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD)[2], which is one of the proposals that forms part of the Commission’s Omnibus I simplification package[3].

The complainants argue that, in this case, the Commission departed from key procedural requirements foreseen in the Better Regulation Guidelines^[4] and failed to carry out a public consultation and an impact assessment without a proper justification. In their view, the Commission performed a rushed inter-service consultation that was not in line with its rules of procedure. They also consider that the Commission did not carry out a climate consistency assessment as foreseen by the European Climate Law (Regulation 2021/1119)[5].

The Ombudsman has consistently held that EU institutions and bodies should apply the rules they have established for themselves. This ensures consistency, transparency and avoids any sense of arbitrariness in the way the EU administration works. These considerations are particularly important when the Commission prepares legislative proposals.

The Better Regulation Guidelines set out the principles that the Commission follows when preparing proposals and when managing and evaluating existing legislation. While some flexibility may be required in their application, any departure from the requirements set out in these Guidelines should always be justified. Otherwise, EU citizens may question the Commission’s commitment to a transparent, inclusive and evidence-based law-making process. This is even more so when the Commission does not comply with legal requirements, such as conducting a climate consistency assessment, when proposing legislation.

This is the third complaint[6] that my Office has received in recent months concerning the Commission’s compliance with legal requirements, its Better Regulation Guidelines and further rules in preparing legislative proposals. It is clear that the issues raised in these three complaints raise a number of important issues for the Ombudsman.

For these reasons, I have decided to open an inquiry into this complaint.

As a first step, I consider that it is necessary for my inquiry team to meet with the relevant representatives of the Commission to discuss the issues brought forward by the complainants. The annex to this letter contains a list of more specific questions to be discussed during that meeting.

In addition, I have decided that it is necessary to inspect the following documents:

• Any documentation relating to the decision not to perform a stakeholder consultation and a new impact assessment in this case, including any relevant information entered in the Decide IT platform and any approval sought and granted from the Vice-President responsible for ‘better regulation’ or the Director responsible for ‘better regulation’ in the Secretariat-General[7].
• Any documentation relating to the decision not to perform a climate consistency assessment (Article 6(4) of the European Climate Law).
• Any documentation relating to the decision to launch a fast-track inter-service consultation.
• Any additional internal guidance for staff on the application of the Better Regulation Guidelines and Tool Box, if relevant for this inquiry.

I would be grateful if the above documents are provided to my Office, preferably in electronic format through encrypted e-mail,^[8] prior to the meeting and by 6 June 2025 at the latest.

Following the meeting, my inquiry team may ask to inspect additional documents.

Information or documents that your institution considers to be confidential will not be disclosed to the complainants or any other person without the prior agreement of the Commission. [9]

I would be grateful if your office could contact Mr Markus Spoerer in charge of this inquiry, to agree the arrangements for the inspection and meeting to take place before 18 June 2025.

Yours sincerely,

Teresa Anjinho
European Ombudsman

Strasbourg, 21/05/2025

 

Annex:

List of questions for the meeting

Stakeholder consultation

The Commission lists four elements under the heading of ‘stakeholder consultations’ in the explanatory memorandum accompanying its proposal:

1) European Commission ‘Call for evidence on the rationalisation of reporting requirements’, from October to December 2023; 

2) European Commission meetings with companies and other stakeholders in early February 2025;

3) The European Commission has also held separate stakeholder activities including two large hybrid stakeholder forums on the CSRD in May and November 2024 with the participation of approximately 400 people in person and more than 3000 people virtually;

4) The European Commission received a very significant number of letters and detailed analyses from all types of stakeholders (from companies to investors, banks, civil society, Non-Governmental Organisations, chambers of commerce and Member States’ national administrations).

• Could the Commission elaborate on the reasons for its decision not to carry out a public consultation for this proposal? How and by whom was this decision taken?
• The Commission mentions the ‘Call for evidence’, conducted from October to December 2023. Could the Commission elaborate on the extent to which the call for evidence document covered the elements of the specific legislative proposal at issue?
• Concerning the “meetings with companies and other stakeholders in early February 2025”, could the Commission clarify: Who was invited to these meetings? When, how and based on which criteria were stakeholders invited to these meetings? How were the results of these meetings taken into account when drawing up the legislative proposal in question? (Please provide any relevant internal documentation.)
• Concerning the stakeholder activities listed under 3) above, could the Commission provide the list of those who took part in these meetings? How and based on which criteria were these stakeholders selected or invited? To what extent the two above mentioned large hybrid stakeholder forum concern the substance of the legislative proposal at hand? How were the results of these two stakeholder forums taken into account when drawing up the legislative proposal in question? (Please provide any relevant internal documentation.)

Impact assessment:

In the explanatory memorandum to the legislative proposal, the Commission says that “given the importance and urgency of this initiative a derogation was granted under the Commission’s Better Regulation Guidelines. Accordingly, no full-fledged impact assessment has been prepared but the proposal is accompanied by a Commission Staff Working Document that includes an analysis of the impacts of the proposed measures, including a qualitative analysis and, where possible, estimations of costs savings as well as supporting evidence.” The Commission refers to the “critical urgency” of the competitiveness of EU businesses, as well as previous impact assessments performed for existing legal acts.

• Could the Commission please elaborate on the reasons for its decision not to carry out a new impact assessment? In particular, could the Commission please explain the “urgency” of the situation due to which “the proposal does not allow for an impact assessment”?
• How and by whom was the decision taken not to carry out an impact assessment?
• To what extent did existing impact assessments cover the Commission’s legislative proposal at issue in this inquiry? Please provide the relevant impact assessments and point out the parts relevant to this proposal. Please also share any documentation pertaining to the Commission’s internal assessment in that regard.

Climate consistency assessment (Article 6(4) of the European Climate Law)

• Did the Commission carry out a climate consistency assessment of the legislative proposal at issue? If not, why was it decided that this was not needed? How and by whom was this decision taken?

Inter-service consultation

• Could you please confirm that the time allocated to the inter-service consultation was shortened in this case? Please provide details on when the inter-service consultation was launched and when it was completed.
• Under which circumstances does the Commission decide to shorten the time given for an inter-service consultation? On which basis and by whom are such decisions taken?
• What were the reasons for shortening the time given in the inter-service consultation in this case?

 

[1] ClientEarth, Notre Affaire A Tous, Clean Clothes Campaign, European Coalition for Corporate Justice, Global Witness, Transport & Environment, Antislavery International and Friends of the Earth Europe

[2] COM(2025) 81 final

[3] https://commission.europa.eu/publications/omnibus-i_en.

[4] https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-making-process/better-regulation/better-regulation-guidelines-and-toolbox_en

[5] Article 6(4) of Regulation (EU) 2021/1119 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 June 2021 establishing the framework for achieving climate neutrality

[6] In one of the other complaints, the Ombudsman opened an inquiry (1379/2024/MIK - How the European Commission prepared a proposal to amend legislation related to the Common Agricultural Policy). The other complaint that is still pending.

[7] In line with the procedure outlined in the Better Regulation Toolbox, Tool 1, p. 10.

[8] Encrypted emails can be sent to our dedicated mailbox.

[9] Please clearly mark such material ‘Confidential’. Encrypted emails can be sent to our dedicated mailbox. Information and documents of this kind will be deleted from the European Ombudsman’s files shortly after the inquiry has ended.