The majority of companies in Europe can look forward to being free from a number of burdens and costs related to sustainability reporting after an agreement was reached on Tuesday night.
The agreement means that only companies with more than 1,000 employees and an annual turnover of more than 450 million euros - equivalent to 3.36 billion kroner - must report on sustainability.
- A major agreement has now been reached with massive burden reductions for Danish and European businesses. Burdens worth billions (kroner, ed.) will now disappear. The Danish EU presidency has secured the agreement, says Minister of Business and Industry Morten Bødskov (S) in a press release.
The relaxations come after concerns that the EU's bureaucracy could hinder competitiveness in relation to competitors. For Danish companies, the amount of burdens will shrink by 95 percent compared to the original proposal. In Denmark alone, this means that Danish companies will save at least six billion kroner in administrative costs per year in the future.
The rules for reporting sustainability will be simpler with fewer data points. This will make data more numerically based, simple and easy to compare. This will allow green companies to show that they are green because their data can be compared with others.
- Today we fulfilled our promise to remove more burdens and regulations and strengthen the EU's competitiveness. This is an important step towards our common goal of creating a better framework for business, so that companies can grow and innovate, says Minister for European Affairs Marie Bjerre (V) in the announcement.
The agreement states that only companies with more than 5,000 employees and an annual turnover of 1.5 billion euros - equivalent to 11.2 billion kroner - must carry out due diligence.
Agreement aims to strengthen competitiveness
The agreement between the European Parliament and the EU countries aims to strengthen the competitiveness of European companies in international trade markets. It must be approved by the parliament.
Strengthening competitiveness has been an important agenda for the current Danish EU presidency. Denmark has almost held the presidency for six months, and it will expire at the turn of the year.
The report from Mario Draghi in 2024 shook the EU system and pointed out that more and more regulations from Brussels are stifling European companies.
The Danish business organizations Danish Industry (DI), Danish Business and SME Denmark have repeatedly called for less EU bureaucracy to ensure future prosperity.
The Omnibus 1 proposal has met with resistance in the EU Parliament during the legislative process, where the Greens and the Left have expressed concern that the regulatory simplifications will affect the green agenda.
/ritzau/
Text, graphics, images, sound, and other content on this website are protected under copyright law. DK Medier reserves all rights to the content, including the right to exploit the content for the purpose of text and data mining, cf. Section 11b of the Copyright Act and Article 4 of the DSM Directive.
Customers with IP agreements/major customer agreements may only share Danish Offshore Industry articles internally for the purpose of handling specific cases. Sharing in connection with specific cases refers to journaling, archiving, or similar uses.
Customers with a personal subscription/login may not share Danish Offshore Industry articles with individuals who do not themselves have a personal subscription to Danish Offshore Industry.
Any deviation from the above requires written consent from DK Medier.
