European Commission: Work programme for 2025

On 12 February 2025, the European Commission published its work programme for 2025. One of the European Commission’s objectives is to strengthen economic development in the single market, among other things by reducing administrative burdens for companies. To this end, administrative burdens for companies are to be reduced by 25% across the board and by 35% for small and medium-sized companies by means of so-called omnibus initiatives. According to the work programme, the omnibus initiatives will be distributed across various legal proposals. In particular, a first omnibus proposal will be published in the first quarter of 2025, focussing on the reporting obligations of the CSRD (Directive (EU) 2022/2464), the Taxonomy Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2020/852) and the CSDDD (Directive (EU) 2024/1760). A second omnibus proposal in the first quarter of 2025 aims at investment simplifications. A third omnibus proposal will follow in the second quarter of 2025, in which a new company category ‘small mid-caps’ will be introduced. Proposals to amend the SFDR (Regulation (EU) 2019/2088) are to be published in the third quarter of 2025.

Background:

Based on the so-called Letta Report of April 2024 on the future of the internal market, the Draghi Report of September 2024 on the future of the EU’s competitiveness and the strategy paper ‘A Competitiveness Compass for the EU’ of January 2025, the European Commission is pursuing, among other things, the strengthening of the internal market. In connection with this objective, an ‘Omnibus Simplification Package’ was announced as part of the Budapest Declaration in November 2024, which includes simplifications with regard to sustainability-related reporting obligations.