The European Commission’s new Environmental Omnibus package [1] chips away at crucial EU laws that protect people’s health, nature and long-term prosperity, warns the European Environmental Bureau (EEB). The proposal presented today is yet another example of the Commission bending its own procedures – another case of maladministration [2] that risks undermining trust in EU rule-making and undercutting Europe’s ambitions to set global standards.
With the 8th omnibus proposal, the Commission is yet again taking an axe to environmental and health laws that took years to negotiate. These rules protect people and society by cutting pollution, restoring our ecosystems and providing the regulatory certainty industry needs to innovate and invest. Removing them will leave Europeans and our nature behind [3], cost us hundreds of billions in damages [4], and make the bloc less competitive, less resilient and less sovereign.
The package seeks to weaken or roll back key laws including:
- Revised Industrial and Livestock Rearing Emissions Directive (IED 2.0) and the Regulation establishing the Industrial Emissions Portal, which were just adopted last year. The proposal scraps the requirement to assess safer substitutes for hazardous chemicals, removes the obligation for energy-intensive industries to explain how they will transition to climate-neutral and circular production, and allows further delays to catch up with state-of-the-art pollution prevention standards. It also excludes organic poultry farms from the scope of the IED, and exempts large poultry and pig farms from reporting basic resource use. This will give industrial laggards a free pass to continue bad-business-as-usual.
- New Waste Framework Directive, revised only this September, and set to be revised again in 2026. The proposal repeals the only database that contains information on chemicals manufactured and imported in Europe – leaving a major gap for waste management with no immediate plan for an alternative system. Moreover, it misses the chance to strengthen the rules to hold producers accountable for the products they put on the market.
- Batteries Regulation, potentially jeopardising repairability of light means of transport.
- Rules on environmental assessments and to accelerate permitting for energy infrastructure, storage, grids, recharging stations and renewable energy projects via the Grids Package: targeted amendments are proposed for the Renewable Energy Directive, the Electricity Market Directive, and the Gas Market Directive.
Faustine Bas-Defossez, Director for Nature, Health and Environment at the EEB, said: “The Commission is breaking its own rules to tear up the laws that keep us safe. This is not simplification, it is self-sabotage. It puts our health and environment at risk, weakens Europe’s competitiveness and creates chaos for businesses who rely on legal certainty. Who exactly are they doing this for?”
The Environmental Omnibus is part of a broader and troubling political trend: a coordinated attack on the laws that safeguard Europe’s health, climate and nature, in a deregulatory push that trades long-term public interest for short-term political convenience. Once opened to the co-legislators, these crucial laws risk being seriously weakened.
The Commission is already under unprecedented scrutiny for its deregulation methods. In November, the European Ombudswoman found that Omnibus bundling is unlawful and violates essential procedural safeguards. Notably, the Commission pushed out proposals without impact assessments, bypassed public consultation required by the Treaties, and failed to justify the use of urgency arguments to ram through both the due-diligence-weakening Omnibus I and the rollback of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Meanwhile, the EU is set to remain off track for most 2030 environmental goals, according to the European Environment Agency’s (EEA) latest report released today [5].
Contrary to the Commission’s narrative, businesses are increasingly speaking up against the regulatory bonfire, which risks undermining investor confidence and delaying critical industrial renewal.
Both large companies and SMEs warn that sweeping away environmental safeguards via rushed omnibus packages destroys legal certainty, which is a cornerstone of the EU Single Market, and what they rely on to invest and plan [6].
