The EU Commission wants to stop a legislative proposal for minimum standards against misleading environmental promise. The Commission intends to withdraw the proposal, said a spokesman for the authority in Brussels.
The commission later submitted in writing to possible reasons: “The current discussions about the proposal for the commission’s simplification agenda.” 30 million small companies could be recorded of the project.
The CDU praised the commission’s approach. “The planned regulations were disproportionately complex,” said Andreas Schwab’s internal market policy spokesman for the EVP parliamentary group. They caused a lot of bureaucracy and heavily burdened small and medium -sized companies.
In the EU, only the Commission has the right to propose laws and to withdraw them from the legislative process. The proposals are usually negotiated by the EU countries and the European Parliament before something can come into force.
Negotiations are actually still running
Negotiations between the EU countries and the European Parliament are actually still running – the next and possibly the last round of negotiations are still planned for Monday.
Previously, the EPP parliamentary group in the European Parliament, which also includes the CDU and CSU, had asked the Commission to withdraw the legislative proposal in a letter. In the letter about which the portal previously "Euractiv" has reported, among other things, that possible effects of the project have not been examined enough.
Consumer protection in focus
The aim of the planned rules is that consumers: inside that buy an environmentally friendly product can be sure that it really is. Advertising promises like "Sea-friendly T-shirts" or "100 percent CO2-compensated deliveries" should be checked more precisely by the law.
So -called Greenwashing should be prevented as environmental or climate -friendly, although they may not be at all – marketed companies or services. According to a study by the EU Authority of 2020, more than half of the information about the climate-friendly of goods were vague, misleading or unfounded.
Foodwatch called for a hold on the legal project: “The Commission must now not take back in favor of the corporations who want to give their climate -damaging products a green vest. This undermines the trust of people into politics.”
Output of the project is still unclear
How things are going on is still open. From the SPD it was said that there was no agreement on the commission about whether the legislative proposal should really be withdrawn. Among other things, the EU commissioners Stéphane Séjourné and Teresa Ribera are against it. The commission’s announcement was surprised.
The negotiator of Parliament, Delara Burkhardt (SPD) responsible for the law, would like to quickly complete the project. "We see it as a political affront to interfere in the work of Parliament and the EU countries so shortly before the negotiations have been completed"she said.
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) welcomed the decision of the EU Commission. ICC-Germany general secretary Oliver Wieck emphasized, especially in times when companies face major challenges, be it right not to burden them with further costs and additional bureaucracy. “Today’s step shows that the worries of the economy have been heard and taken seriously.”