Brussels wants to simplify and reduce the administrative burden for businesses in order to improve European competitiveness.
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00:00To simplify and reduce the administrative burden for companies, this is the approach
00:10that Brussels is proposing to improve European competitiveness.
00:14According to the EU Commission's working plan, the first areas that will be impacted
00:18include important pieces of legislation.
00:21Among them is corporate sustainability due diligence, which ensures companies address
00:26human rights and the environmental impact of their actions.
00:30Taxonomy, which defies the criteria for economic activities to be aligned with a net-zero trajectory,
00:36is also addressed.
00:37There is much at stake.
00:39Without simpler and more cost-effective rules, Europe will keep up losing economic weight.
00:45We must be clear, simplification and enhancing Europe's competitiveness are not ends in itself.
00:53What we are pursuing is to set the right conditions to have more innovation, more business, higher
00:59growth and better jobs in Europe.
01:02Those are important not only to maintain our well-being and social model, but also our
01:08ability to succeed in green and digital transition.
01:14The European Construction Industry Federation welcomed the initiative, but also submitted
01:19a 24-point position paper and warned that the current framework does not make it attractive
01:24for small and medium-sized enterprises to finance sustainable activities.
01:34When it comes to the specific reporting obligations, it is of immense importance to reduce the
01:39complexity of sustainability reporting by reducing the number of data points defined
01:45in the framework of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards.
01:49There are more than 1,100 individual data points that companies have to disclose information
01:56upon.
01:57This is too much and this also affects small and medium-sized enterprises that get those
02:02information as requests from their business partners along the value chain.
02:09While the European Commission's headquarters in Brussels was in closed-door negotiations
02:13with big businesses, a few days ago, dozens of NGOs and interest groups protested outside
02:19the building.
02:22They fear that the simplifications will affect workers' rights and that environmental sustainability
02:27standards will be watered down.
02:30This legislation, again, the workers, the people, it's about the impact that huge multinationals
02:35have on them throughout the globe, in Europe and abroad.
02:39If you listen to the Commission, the only thing they seem to care about is how to make
02:43life easier for business, which we argue is just a fancy way to say how can we make business,
02:49make the planet burn even faster than it currently is.
02:52The European Commission has promised that the proposals will not compromise the green
02:56transition and insists they will make it cheaper.