WWF welcomes the European Commission’s announcement to cease any further Omnibus packages having concluded that the limits of legislative “simplification” have finally been reached.
Following a comprehensive internal review, officials determined that all imaginable methods of streamlining and quietly reshaping environmental protections into significantly weaker measures have now been fully exhausted.
“It looks like the Commission has finally come to its senses,” said a WWF EU spokesperson. “We have clearly reached ‘peak simplification’ of environmental laws – more weakening would not only leave Europe’s nature and climate entirely unprotected, but also lead to the redundancy of all EU environmental lawyers, resulting in countless job losses.”
According to the Commission, the environmental acquis has been “optimised to maximum Omnibus capacity”, leaving almost no remaining provisions that can be further diluted “without making it obvious that the exercise has little to do with competitiveness.”
This decision comes after 18 months of sustained effort to revisit and “simplify” environmental safeguards, driven by vested interests. A senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, admitted that “every possible pathway to make environmental rules less relevant has been explored”, adding that any further adjustments would risk “citizens no longer taking us seriously.”
Looking ahead, the Commission will instead focus its efforts on delaying the implementation of key environmental legislation, including continued procrastination on the IT system required for the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) – ensuring that a law supported by hundreds of thousands of citizens and leading companies remains largely theoretical for the time being.
