Lawyers have declared it unlawful. The EU’s watchdog has found maladministration. And yet it’s full steam ahead for the EU’s simplification train – or ‘omnibus’, to be more precise. As one simplification chapter closes, another opens. What is going on, and what does this mean going forward? Natasha Foote brings you the latest in the legal wrangle around the EU’s simplification saga.
It’s a new year, but the same old simplification saga is still ongoing in Brussels.
It has been two years since the European Commission proposed the first of its legislative ‘omnibus’ packages. The aim is to streamline legislation, making life simpler for farmers and those receiving EU funds.
But, as ARC warned at the time, all that glitters is not gold – and ultimately what we got instead was a raft of policy changes which have effectively fast-tracked environmental deregulation under the banner of simplification.
And last week (Tuesday 24th February), the EU Council officially rubber-stamped the first of these simplification packages – the so-called ‘Omnibus I’ – slashing sustainability rules, bringing the first simplification chapter to a close.
Yet, as another round of simplification looms, we are only now starting to unpick the legal ramifications of the EU’s newest shiny policy plaything.
Watchdog’s warning
Amid concerns over the Commission’s conduct on the first packages of simplification, NGOs brought this case in front of the EU’s watchdog, the Ombudsman, arguing that the Commission departed from key procedural requirements. The case points out there was no public consultation, impact assessment, or climate consistency assessment as required by the European Climate Law.
And, two years down the line, it seems fears were founded, with the recently published European Ombudsman’s report finding “shortcomings” in how the Commission prepared urgent legislative proposals. The Ombudsman notes that the EU executive had applied a “particularly broad definition of ‘urgency’” in their rush to dismantle important environmental protections.
It also failed to “sufficiently justify invoking urgency to derogate from its internal decision-making rules,” the watchdog found. This refers to the EU’s guidelines for fair policy making – safeguards to ensure that Europeans’ fundamental democratic rights are respected and that EU laws are fit for purpose.
Papering over the cracks
Yet despite mounting legal concerns, including a letter signed by no fewer than 100 lawyers warning of the legal implications of the omnibus, it’s not quite how the Commission sees things.
Despite admitting to some shortcomings, and committing to improving some of these, overall the Commission “considers that it applied its better regulation principles and guidelines in the preparation of its Omnibus I proposal”.
In its official response to the Ombudsman, the Commission argues that it managed to “conduct multiple consultation activities” and to “envisage impacts of the specific initiative” and assess its “climate consistency”.
The response signs off that the Commission “remains committed to its better regulation, high standards and to working in a transparent, inclusive, and evidence-based manner”.
For ClientEarth, one of the organisations that brought the case to the Ombudsman, the improvements the Commission has agreed to gives “some hope for more transparency” but they are “not enough to fix the wider underlying problem” – namely that the Commission has not “meaningfully committed to correct its lack of open and inclusive consultation of all relevant stakeholders and failure to justify why the laws it proposes do not meet the EU’s legally binding climate ambition.”
“Simply improving paperwork will not make unlawful shortcuts lawful, nor will it make sure that our laws are made according to basic democratic principles and based on facts and science, rather than just ideas,” ClientEarth wrote following the official response.
Likewise, the European Coalition for Corporate Justice feels that the Commission’s reply “falls short”. “Admitting the need for minor fixes while ignoring the core problem only confirms how unsound the Commission’s approach to ‘simplification’ truly is,” the group wrote. “Impact assessments, public consultations, and climate checks are not red tape. They are essential democratic safeguards. Weakening them ultimately undermines the quality of EU lawmaking and erodes citizens’ trust in EU democracy.”
Europe’s independence moment?
But the Commission may not need to find workarounds to these pesky guidelines for much longer: in its work programme for 2026, subtitled “Europe’s independence moment”, the Commission announced that its ‘Better Regulation’ framework will be “simplified”, with “a more rigorous and structured application of the proportionality principle”.
And this spells trouble, according to Corporate Europe Observatory. “There’s every reason to fear that the planned reform will add significant new obstacles, limiting the chances that ambitious regulations to solve societal challenges make it through the Commission’s internal law-making machine,” the campaign group warned.
And of course, all of this takes place just as the EU looks to “simplify” its pesticides regulations in chapter ten of its simplification saga. Presented back in December, the plans would, on the one hand, see smoother and faster pathways for new biologically based alternatives to pesticides. But on the other hand, they would also open the door to indefinite synthetic pesticide approvals, while removing the obligation for EU countries to consider the most recent independent scientific evidence during national pesticide product authorisations.
Lawyers have already sounded alarm bells about this latest attempt to streamline EU rules, with a new legal opinion raising “serious doubts” about the plans, warning they would “significantly lower the level of protection in the fields of health and environmental protection”.
The legal opinion – which was commissioned by seven non-profits, including ClientEarth and Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe and published at the end of January – carries a clear warning that legal challenges may lie ahead if the plans are approved.
Omnibus rolls on
The omnibus is rolling its way through the interinstitutional process, with deliberations underway in both the European Parliament and Council. As talks progress, legal and environmental groups are piling on the pressure for decision makers to put people before profit and reject the proposed legislation in the EU Council.
The old adage says that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. With this latest installment, the simplification saga is now in double digits. The question is: will the EU finally heed the environmental and legal warning signs and hit the brakes? Or will chapter ten, like its predecessors, roll on regardless?
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