EU seeks feedback on how it should reduce reporting burden
MEP calls for suggestions from stakeholders as Dombrovskis outlines plans for streamlining rules over coming years
European Parliament is calling for input from companies about how the EU should streamline its reporting requirements.
Speaking on LinkedIn, conservative MEP Axel Voss said he wants to hear stakeholders’ views on the EU’s pledge to cut disclosure rules by 25%.
The European Commission made the promise after widespread complaints about mushrooming and overlapping requirements, especially in relation to sustainability.
“The question is, how can we achieve a reduction, streamlining, simplification and digitalisation of bureaucratic requirements across legislation, including reporting standards?” said Voss.
“We would like to know from stakeholders from all sectors: where do you see clear overlaps that can be avoided? What needs to be streamlined? Where do you see the potential to reduce reporting? And what should be simplified in order to reduce the bureaucratic burden and boost our economy?”
Voss will be collecting suggestions, via email, until December 2nd.
His comments came at the end of the parliamentary hearing for Valdis Dombrovskis, the Commissioner expected to oversee the “implementation and streamlining” of EU laws over the next five years.
Dombrovskis, who was responsible for the Commission’s sustainable finance agenda during the genesis of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) and green taxonomy, was grilled by MEPs about his plans for the new role.
He gave very little away, avoiding a request from Dutch MEP Lara Walters to commit not to pursue the 25% cut if it undermined the EU’s sustainability objectives and not to re-open “recently-agreed legislation” until it had had time to bed in.
Dombrovskis also stayed tight-lipped when another MEP suggested that watering down the CSRD “would punish companies already investing in regulatory compliance, and reward those companies which are less eager to follow our European laws”.
He acknowledged firms’ complaints about CSRD, pointing out that the Commission had already driven through measures to reduce its scope and extend its timeline.
The Commission must still deal with the burden faced by smaller firms, and make sure “that large companies are not just passing on their reporting requirements to SMEs”, Dombrovskis said.
The broader 25% cut in reporting requirements, he explained, would be achieved through stress tests and implementation dialogues.
On the former, the Commission will assess the cumulative effects of legislation on entire sectors and value chains, focusing on “priority areas which our stakeholders are indicating as the most burdensome, and coming forward with a simplification proposal”.
“On implementation dialogues, we’re going to have a broad range of stakeholders participating,” Dombrovskis said.
“Industry, but also social partners [and] civil society… it depends which are the main stakeholders in different sectors.”
The first round of simplification proposals will be made within the first 100 days of the new Commission’s mandate.
