EU Ombudsman Teresa Anjinho announced that she has asked the European Commission to provide explanations regarding its failure to follow a series of procedural steps to launch its “Omnibus” initiative to simplify and reduce corporate sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements.

The information request, sent in a letter to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, forms the next step an inquiry into the Omnibus proposal, launched by the Ombudsman in May, following complaints arguing that the Commission failed to comply with its “Better Regulation Guidelines,” which set out the principles that the European Commission is required to follow when preparing new initiatives and proposals.

Specifically, the Ombudsman’s letter requests detailed information regarding including the Commission’s decision to not carry out an impact assessment or a public consultation, as well as the lack of a climate consistency assessment, a requirement under the European Climate Law requiring an assessment of the consistency of EU and national policies with the EU’s 2050 climate neutrality goal.

The Commission released its Omnibus I package in late February 2025, aimed at significantly reducing the sustainability reporting and regulatory burden on companies, with proposals for major changes to a series of regulations including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), as well as the Taxonomy Regulation, and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).

Among the most significant changes included in the package is a proposal to remove the majority of companies from the scope of the CSRD regulation and to substantially reduce amount of reported information required by the regulation, and for the CSDDD to require full human rights and environmental due diligence only at the level of direct business partners, and to require less frequent due diligence monitoring. The package also proposes limits on sustainability information requests on smaller companies.

In the letter, the Ombudsman notes that the Omnibus proposal would in principle require a full-fledged impact assessment, yet the Commission instead only prepared an analytical document. Despite the Commission’s justification of the “critical urgency” of the proposal, the Ombudsman stated that “the Commission does not seem to have adequately justified derogating from its rules in this case,” adding that “the Commission did not indicate any sudden or unexpected event that would justify the urgency.”

The Ombudsman’s letter asks for more information to explain why the Commission decided that a public consultation on the proposal was not considered necessary, noting that the only stakeholder exchanges carried out prior to the Omnibus release were two meetings attended mainly by industry and business interests in February. The letter stated:

“It is not clear how the stakeholder exchanges referred to in the explanatory memorandum meant that a public consultation would not have added new information, in particular considering that many stakeholders that could have contributed otherwise were not invited to participate in the February 2025 meetings.”

Regarding the absence of a climate consistency assessment, the letter notes that the Commission viewed it as unnecessary as the amendments did not undermine the objectives of the  European Green Deal, but says that “the Commission did not include, in the explanatory memorandum or in the staff working document, any analysis to support that conclusion.”

Additionally, the Ombudsman’s letter notes that while internal consultations between Commission departments to review and reply to proposals are normally carried out over ten days, and can be fast tracked in some cases to 48 hours, the Commission only allowed 24 hours for the internal consultation on the Omnibus proposal, which was “launched on a Friday evening and ended on a Saturday evening,” and asks for clarification on this issue as well.

The letter requests that the Commission reply by September 15, adding, “considering the importance of this inquiry, and taking into account that the Commission is planning additional ‘Omnibus’ proposals, I do not intend to grant any extension of this deadline.”

Click here to access the Ombudsman’s letter to the Commission.