EU Commission plans to withdraw greenwashing law

The EU Commission planned to halt a legislative proposal on minimum standards against misleading environmental advertising claims. A spokesperson for the authority in Brussels said the Commission intended to withdraw the proposal.

The Commission later provided written reasons: "The current discussions surrounding the proposal run counter to the Commission’s simplification agenda." 30 million micro-enterprises could be covered by the proposal.

The CDU praised the Commission’s approach. "The planned regulations were disproportionately complex," said Andreas Schwab, the internal market policy spokesperson for the EPP Group. They caused a lot of bureaucracy and placed a heavy burden on small and medium-sized enterprises in particular.

In the EU, only the Commission has the right to propose laws and to withdraw them from the legislative process. The proposals are usually finally negotiated by the EU countries and the European Parliament before anything can come into force.

Negotiations are actually still ongoing

Negotiations between the EU member states and the European Parliament on the proposal are actually still ongoing; the next and possibly last round of negotiations is scheduled for Monday, according to information from Parliament.

Previously, the EPP Group in the European Parliament, which includes the CDU and CSU, had called on the Commission in a letter to withdraw the legislative proposal. The letter, which had previously been reported on by the ‘Euractiv’ portal, among others, criticised the fact that possible effects of the proposal had not been sufficiently investigated.

Consumer protection in focus

The aim of the planned rules was to ensure that consumers buying a product advertised as environmentally friendly could be sure that it really was. Advertising promises such as ‘ocean-friendly T-shirts’ or ‘100 percent CO2-compensated deliveries’ would have been more closely scrutinised under the law.

This was intended to prevent so-called greenwashing, where companies market products or services as environmentally or climate-friendly, even though they may not be. According to a 2020 study by the EU authority, more than half of the information on the climate friendliness of goods was vague, misleading or unfounded.

Foodwatch called for the legislative proposal to be upheld: "The Commission must not now back down in favour of the corporations that want to give their climate-damaging products a green image. This undermines people’s trust in politics."

Outcome of the proposal still unclear

How things will proceed now is still open. The SPD said there was no agreement within the Commission on whether the legislative proposal should actually be withdrawn. Among others, EU Commissioners Stéphane Séjourné and Teresa Ribera were against it. They had been surprised by the Commission’s announcement.

The Parliament’s negotiator in charge of the law, Delara Burkhardt (SPD), wanted to conclude the proposal quickly. "We see it as a political affront to interfere in the work of Parliament and the EU member states so shortly before the conclusion of the negotiations," she said.

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) welcomed the EU Commission’s decision. ICC Germany Secretary General Oliver Wieck stressed that, especially at a time when companies were facing major challenges, it was right not to burden them with further costs and additional bureaucracy. "Today’s step shows that the concerns of the business community have been heard and taken seriously." (AFP)