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  • It was a response to complaints from EU industry that it cannot compete with rivals in China and the United States, where President Trump is rolling back regulation and imposing tariffs on foreign goods.

    Just make these reporting duties apply for imported products too.

    The means firms with fewer than 500 employees and larger firms that are not deemed "public interest entities" will not need to report on their sustainability impact until the year 2027 - with reports due in 2028. Most bigger firms face the reporting obligations this year.

    How much % of economic activity does this exempt? There is a lot of companies with less than 500 employees and if "public interest entities" is considered to narrow, this could exclude many very large companies as well. Also the cutoff by employee number simply means that this is considered an "overhead" duty that companies are large enough to handle. It seems to be disadvantaging companies if on top there is some abstract "public interest" defined, rather than obliging all companies of that size equally.

    The negotiations will then begin on the bigger proposed changes to the laws. They include exempting an estimated 80% of the companies initially covered by the green reporting rules, by only applying them to firms with more than 1,000 employees.

    Yes great. Make the measure extremely ineffective this way. Don't create a market in which quality and sustainability are favored. Don't create standards that other markets would start to follow. Don't give European companies an advantage by being able to comply with these rules. It is best to sabotage what gave the EU success. Instead of competing on quality and good working conditions we should aim to lower the value of EU workers to be competitive with South Asia or Africa. That is sure going to make the EU more livable and politically stable...

    Without cynicism: Being able to comply with higher regulatory standards and properly enforcing them is a long term advantage for EU companies. By using the EUs market power we can lead other markets to create similar standards and keep an edge on innovation, which could protect the wealth in the EU relative to the rest of the world. But it would be wealth for everyone, rather than just wealth for the rich.