Environmental secondary legislation: Commissioner plans to cut by one third

EU environment attaché Mathias Kirkegaard has announced Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall’s intention to reduce the number of environmental secondary laws, such as delegated and implementing acts, by one third.

The proposal is significant as 99.2% of EU environmental laws adopted between 2019 and 2024 were secondary legislation.

While the initiative aims to cut red tape and lower compliance costs for businesses, it raises institutional and practical concerns.

Empowerments to adopt secondary legislation often serve as essential tools for reaching compromise in EU lawmaking. If not used as intended, technical issues could become politicised, making future agreements harder to achieve.

The proposal may also lead co-legislators to introduce more legal deadlines, which can pressure the Commission to rush complex files or risk breaching deadlines.

The Commission has not disclosed its criteria for selecting which laws to eliminate. Although simplification has merit, observers warn that removing rules that ensure market harmonisation could undermine the functioning of the internal market.

For example, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) creates the mandate for the Commission to adopt over 80 implementing and delegated acts, without which it will not be possible to implement the law correctly and in a harmonised way.

The challenge lies in striking the right balance between cost savings and maintaining effective, coherent EU environmental policy.

Landbell Group is currently reviewing all mandates for implementing and delegated acts given to the European Commission in the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) and the Batteries and Batteries Waste Regulation, checking the potential for such reductions, and will then engage with the Commission.

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