(Brussels, December 10, 2025) – Members of the European Parliament should reject a proposal to dramatically weaken EU rules on corporate environmental, climate, and human rights due diligence and reporting when it comes to a final vote on December 16, Climate Rights International said today. On December 9, bowing to pressure from the fossil fuel industry, business associations, and the Trump administration, the European Council and European Parliament negotiators agreed on major rollbacks of hard-won corporate human rights, environmental, and climate obligations.

The “Omnibus 1” package would reduce the scope of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) by nearly 90 percent, delete requirements for corporate climate transition plans, weaken value-chain due diligence, eliminate penalties for non-compliance, and delay implementation of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) until 2029. The changes severely undermine the EU’s credibility as a trustworthy global actor on climate action, the protection of human rights, and responsible business conduct.

“That the European Council, led by the Danish EU Presidency, and members of the European Parliament agreed to undermine world-leading climate commitments is a colossal EU own goal,” said Lotte Leicht, Advocacy Director at Climate Rights International. “The companies removed from reporting and due diligence obligations operate in sectors with well-documented risks, from deforestation to forced labor to toxic pollution. The full European Parliament must reject this profoundly retrograde deal that will harm the environment, the climate, and the rights and livelihoods of people around the world.”

The Omnibus 1 package would limit corporate reporting and due diligence obligations to only the largest companies, removing the vast majority of businesses originally covered, including many whose operations carry serious climate and human rights risks in global supply chains. The scope of the CSDDD will be reduced by 70%, leaving only a little more than 1,000 corporations covered, while the scope of the CSRD will be reduced by 90%, leaving some 4,800 corporations covered.

By shifting away from systematic value-chain scrutiny toward a looser requirement that companies “focus” on certain risks and partners, the deal creates space for companies to sidestep responsibility for severe abuses occurring beyond their most direct business relationships, while penalties are weakened and capped.

“The Omnibus 1 package followed a process where basic EU procedural, transparency, participation and impact-assessment rules were ignored and violated,” said Leicht. “The result is a ‘get out of jail free’ card for many big companies that can simply refuse to effectively oversee their supply chains. This backsliding threatens frontline communities already facing the realities of climate change, environmental degradation, and supply-chain abuses.”

The removal of climate transition plan requirements is particularly damaging, stripping the EU of a key mechanism designed to ensure corporate strategies are aligned with scientific evidence and the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Instead of strengthening the foundations of the Green Deal and building on the International Court of Justice’s confirmation that states must regulate corporate actors to meet climate obligations, lawmakers have opened the door to weaker oversight and diminished accountability at the very moment the climate crisis is accelerating.

“These changes mark a profound shift in the EU’s direction,” said Leicht. “Europe must decide whether it wants to be a continent reshaped in Trump’s image, where corporate lobbyists successfully scrap rules, impunity for abuses continues, and the climate crisis is ignored, or a place where facts, science, rights, the rule of law, and the planet are defended and protected.”

The consequences of this agreement would extend beyond Brussels, Climate Rights International said. The EU has spent years urging other governments to strengthen their corporate accountability laws and championing the Green Deal as a model of responsible governance. By hollowing out its own framework, the EU hands authoritarian governments, fossil-fuel states, and businesses an easy excuse to weaken or abandon their own commitments.

“The Omnibus 1 deal may have passed, but the fight is far from over,” said Leicht. “National parliaments, responsible companies, the European Court of Justice, and civil society all have a role to play in reversing this backsliding. Europe can still choose a future defined by accountability and protection of the planet and the human rights of present and future generation, but only if it acts now.”