EU Ombudsman Challenges Commission Over Omnibus Sustainability Rollback Procedures

EU Ombudsman Teresa Anjinho has formally asked the European Commission to explain why it bypassed standard procedural safeguards when launching the Omnibus initiative to scale back corporate sustainability reporting rules. The letter, addressed to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, queries the absence of an impact assessment, a public consultation, and a climate consistency assessment.

The Ombudsman's inquiry, launched in May following public complaints, centres on the Commission's release of the Omnibus I package in late February 2025, which proposed sweeping changes to the CSRD, CSDDD, Taxonomy Regulation, and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. Key concerns in the letter include the Commission's decision to allow only 24 hours for internal inter-departmental consultation — launched on a Friday evening and concluded on a Saturday — against the standard 10-day timeline.

The package, if adopted, would remove the majority of companies from CSRD scope, limit CSDDD due diligence to direct business partners, and restrict sustainability information requests on smaller companies. Critics argue the rollback weakens a decade of regulatory progress on ESG transparency in Europe, and the Ombudsman's intervention signals that procedural legitimacy, not just policy content, is now under scrutiny.

The Commission must respond by September 15, 2025, with the Ombudsman explicitly refusing to grant an extension given the inquiry's importance and the likelihood of further Omnibus proposals. The outcome could affect the Commission's ability to proceed with planned Omnibus II and III packages, and may influence how EU institutions justify procedural shortcuts on politically sensitive legislation.

Key figure — September 15 deadline