Q&A: Why we're challenging the EU's watering down of green rules

BRUSSELS - The European Union spent five years developing new laws requiring companies to check and remedy cases of forced labour or environmental damage caused in their global supply chains.

Now it is seeking to roll back certain measures just months after adopting them.

Amandine Van Den Berghe, a lawyer at environmental firm ClientEarth, is among a group of campaigners who lodged a complaint with the European Ombudsman on April 18, accusing the EU Commission of weakening sustainability laws without public consultation or impact assessments. 

The changes proposed under the package called "Omnibus" would exempt thousands of smaller European businesses from EU sustainability reporting rules and curb obligations for bigger firms to check their supply chains for human rights and environmental problems. 
    
Since Donald Trump returned as U.S. president and promised a raft of deregulation, companies and governments in other parts of the world feel pressure to dismantle their environmental, social and governance policies.

The European Commission has argued that regulations are too burdensome and need to be streamlined. The new measures aim to help Europe's companies compete with China and the United States.

Context spoke to Van Den Berghe about the political backlash to green policy and how campaigners are pushing back.    

The EU has shifted from the forefront of climate regulation to rolling back green policies. Were you surprised by how quickly it happened?

When you work so much on the legislation for five years, and once its adopted, it's rolled back only a few months later, of course you're surprised but also disappointed.

What they are doing with the 'Omnibus' proposal is proper deregulation. It's really sad because it's just short-termism and not strategic at all that the EU deregulates such key legislation for its economy and for the environment. 

Why did you bring a complaint to the European Ombudsman, and what do you hope to achieve?

Given the total absence of impact assessments on the environment, climate or human rights, and the total absence of public consultation, we were really concerned about the legitimacy of the new proposal.

In terms of what we expect, the European Ombudsman's decisions are not legally binding, and it usually takes one year to adopt a decision and recommendations for the Commission. 

So our objective was not to use the Ombudsman's decision to influence the process, but to bring attention to the flawed decision-making process (and) warn the public and EU lawmakers who will be negotiating the proposal.    

In your experience, how effective has legal action been to achieve climate goals?

Climate litigation has been on the rise in recent years, and it will continue to rise, as long as companies do not take action to properly reduce their emissions and as long countries do not adopt climate policies to reach their Paris Agreement objectives and as we see more and more climate disasters happening.

That's because there will always be innovative lawyers and NGOs willing to file and to sue companies and governments for not doing enough and not doing their part in the fight against climate change.

Do you expect more regulatory rollback?

In the EU, the corporate sustainability rules are the first ones affected by the deregulation movement, but we know more are coming, and so we are very concerned about it.

The EU has been seen as a leader adopting these laws, and now potentially rolling back this legislation is sending a bad signal and creates legal uncertainty for companies.

Climate change, biodiversity loss and the pollution crisis are not going to take a break with the Trump administration. The EU must stick to its principles, laws and values and not throw everything overboard in a moment of panic.

The story was corrected on April 29 to correct the name of the lawyer and the company in paragraph 3.

(Reporting by Joanna Gill; Editing by Ayla Jean Yackley)