During the summer, the European Commission quietly launched a “call for evidence” to be submitted by September 10, inviting businesses, organizations, and citizens to give their opinion on whether EU environmental legislation should be relaxed on the grounds that it harms business and blocks innovation.
This initiative signals a radical transformation of European policy. Indeed, nine months after taking office, in order to move toward relaxing environmental regulations and lightening the regulatory burden on businesses, the European Commission is planning an unprecedented wave of simplification.
A "Simplification" That Conceals Deregulation
However, what the Commission calls a “simplification policy” is in reality nothing other than a policy of drastic cuts to regulations protecting labor rights, social rights and human rights, as well as digital rights and the environment.
Concretely, this means dismantling the laws that protect nature in Europe. These laws that limit pollution and extraction, protect rare species, restore wetlands, and preserve old-growth forests. The very ones that preserve the landscapes that provide us with clean air, fresh water, and fertile soil, all essential to our survival.
Yet without these protections, our safety net disintegrates. Century-old forests could be exploited with fewer restrictions. Wetlands that store carbon and prevent flooding could be drained.
Civil Society Mobilization to Take Action
Faced with this deadly policy on the horizon, and on the eve of President Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union address to the European Parliament, more than 450 civil society member organizations signed an open letter calling on the EU President and Commission members to halt their dismantling of European environmental legislation.
In this letter, the NGOs particularly denounce the implementation of measures allowing businesses to have a seat at the table of European political decision-makers, giving them the opportunity to influence deliberations and decisions, while organizations acting in the public interest are excluded.
Already Alarming Setbacks in All Areas
The organizations warn that over the next four years, the Commission and EU Member States could dismantle the rules governing companies operating in the EU on a scale that will set back progress on environmental protection, social rights, digital rights, and climate policies by several years.
Several setbacks are already particularly alarming:
Environment and Public Health Threatened
In the name of simplification or economic competitiveness, the European Commission proposes to eliminate or weaken several important protections for the environment and health:
It is considering removing environmental rules from the European agricultural policy, endangering the protection of certain ecosystems such as wetlands and peatlands
It is also considering relaxing certain laws concerning chemicals in cosmetics or forever chemicals (PFAS)
It is studying the possibility of revising labeling rules that inform consumers about hazardous products
Less Transparency and Accountability for Companies
Furthermore, the European Commission has already considerably reduced companies’ obligations in two essential areas:
- On one hand, regarding supply chain monitoring: companies now have fewer obligations to verify what happens with their foreign suppliers (exploitation, pollution, etc.)
- On the other hand, in terms of transparency: companies have fewer obligations to make public what they actually do for the environment and human rights.
It is therefore more difficult to know whether companies truly respect their environmental and social commitments, and they have fewer legal constraints to behave properly.
Reduced Pressure on Polluters
Simultaneously, polluting companies benefit from reduced pressure: mandatory plans that were supposed to force polluting factories to become more ecological are being delayed.
They therefore have fewer immediate constraints to change their practices, which harms both transparency (we know less about what they do) and their accountability (they have fewer accounts to render).
Misleading Climate Objectives
Finally, regarding climate ambitions, the European Commission announced its intention to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040.
However, this proposal contains rather worrying “contortions” and “relaxations,” particularly the authorization to use “international credits.”
This means that European countries could offset part of their emissions by funding ecological projects in other countries, instead of directly reducing their own pollution.
This approach has several flaws:
- It allows European companies to continue polluting by paying for offsets elsewhere
- It weakens Europe’s real effort toward ecological transformation
In summary, opponents believe that this policy prioritizes companies’ economic interests over climate urgency, by creating indirect means of avoiding real emissions reductions.
Such a deregulation policy represents a risk of reinforcing the positions of certain extreme and/or antidemocratic political forces, but also of favoring corruption and slowing decision-making on the most urgent issues, particularly regarding climate change and environmental protection.
Inaction Costs More Than Protection
In the long term, the false notion that it is too costly to protect people and the environment today will have an irreversible cost on our health, our security, our rights, our equity, and our freedom tomorrow.
The facts demonstrate the opposite: it is indeed the absence of environmental protection that represents the true economic cost. The Commission itself acknowledged this by publishing a 2025 report quantifying the cost of poor implementation of current environmental laws. The assessment is striking: between premature deaths, healthcare expenses, decontamination operations, decreased productivity, and material damage, the European Union suffers an annual loss of 180 billion euros, directly linked to its failures in nature protection.
EU nature laws protect something that belongs to all of us: our home, our future, our right. Faced with this deregulation offensive, it is essential that civil society continues to mobilize to preserve European environmental achievements and demand a genuine ecological transition, rather than cosmetic measures that prioritize short-term profits at the expense of our collective survival.