Trade associations urge EC to postpone meeting.
On June 23, the European Commission will host a meeting to finalise its Green Claims Directive which seeks to tighten laws meant to prevent greenwashing and false ecological claims being made by companies.
Worried about the potential impact of any new laws, a large number of trade associations of companies in tourism, hospitality and retail businesses in the European Union have urged the EC to postpone the meeting or at least not take any final decision in Monday’s meeting.
The associations, including Euro Coop, HOTREC, Independent Retail Europe, and Ruraltour have released a statement urging EU co-legislators to postpone any final agreement. According to the associations, who represent over 3 million companies in the retail and hospitality sectors across Europe, meaningful simplification of the legislation needs to be obtained in order to secure competitiveness and investment in sustainability.
The green Claims Directive is meant to strengthen consumer protection against greenwashing and false environmental claims. Several organisations representing companies in the retail and hospitality sector had already expressed their in April, while also identifying five essential actions points to reduce administrative burdens and costs, thus helping businesses and destinations to stay motivated on green issues.
“A rushed agreement would make the Greens Claims Directive both an obstacle to competitiveness and a barrier to sustainability, thus risking innovation, as its regulatory requirements would entail increased costs, burdens and legal uncertainty, outweighing the business case for investing in sustainability and marketing these investments to consumers. We caution that if an agreement on the Green Claims Directive is finalised without effectively addressing these concerns through real simplification and burden reduction, a strong message would be sent to businesses that the simplification agenda is no longer an EU priority,” say the associations in a joint statement.
Representing a total of 3.2 million companies in the retail and hospitality sectors across Europe, providing more than 19 million jobs, the associations say it is essential to delay concluding the trilogue negotiations until the proposal has been significantly simplified.
The associations say that three issues in particular should be addressed to deliver meaningful simplification. One deals with Article 3 of the directive and the associations claim that the substantiation procedure for explicit environmental claims and labels is too complex for a wide set of environmental claims. A simplified procedure with lighter requirements is needed.
On Article 10, they say that the national verification procedures create unnecessary administrative complexity, costs and delays. These must be abolished. Traders should be able to solely rely on simple requirements, without further procedures. On Article 8, the associations claim that the administrative procedure for approving future labelling schemes must be eliminated. Any private or public scheme that is substantiated and verified should be systematically allowed in the EU Single Market, without having to demonstrate in a superfluous administrative process that the scheme meets an abstract ‘added value’ criterion.
Ahead of the negotiations, besides the trade associations, even political parties have jumped in the fray and an influential group is standing against the Green Claims Directive.
The centre right, European People’s Party, the Parliament’s largest group, has already indicated it will not support any outcome of the trilogue regarding the Green Claims Directive.
Jessika Roswall
“As the undersigned EPP shadow rapporteurs, on behalf of the EPP Group, we are writing to formally request that the Commission reconsiders and ultimately withdraws the Green Claims Directive (GCD) proposal. With the concluding trilogue approaching and the final agreement taking clearer shape, it is the carefully considered position of the EPP Group that we will not support any trilogue outcome,” says the letter sent to Jessika Roswall, Environment Commissioner of the EC.
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