Ribera says Brussels will not maintain the anti-eco-posturing directive "at any price."

Brussels, June 25 (EFE).– The European Commission's Executive Vice President for Clean Transition, Teresa Ribera, said Wednesday that the EU executive will not maintain its original proposal for a directive against greenwashing "at any price" and will consider withdrawing it if there are significant changes in the negotiations with the Member States and the European Parliament.

Ribera made this statement when asked about the EU executive's intention, announced unexpectedly last week, to withdraw this proposal despite the fact that it is already in the negotiation phase between the co-legislators, a process known as "trilogue."

The EU vice-president indicated that the issue was not addressed today at the meeting of the College of Commissioners and stressed that the European Commission has not changed its position regarding this legislation, which aims to prevent companies from making misleading claims about the environmental qualities of their products and services.

Ribera: “Not at any price”

"The Commission's position, taking into account that the position of other key actors in this trilogue discussion may be different, sought to underline that the Commission would not adhere to its original mandate at any cost to avoid expanding the scope of the directive," he stated.

Ribera said he hopes there will be "room for agreement between the three institutions," but noted that the message from the EU executive is that "if there were such a significant change in the discussion, the Commission could consider withdrawing the directive."

The so-called Green Claims Directive, presented by the European Commission in March 2023, seeks to strengthen regulations to prevent companies from making misleading claims about the environmental qualities of their products and services.

Proposal stalled in trilogue

The European Parliament and the Council of the EU, which represents the Member States, had been given a negotiating mandate, and both institutions had been discussing the final text with the European Commission since January.

But on Friday, the Commission surprised everyone by announcing its intention to withdraw the text, without initially explaining its reasons, other than that it ran counter to the simplification agenda that Brussels wants to implement in EU legislation.

Later, the government stated in a statement that the decision was due to the fact that the current regulations would negatively affect "30 million microenterprises."

Political pressure and pause in negotiations

Finally, the Polish presidency of the EU Council decided to "pause" negotiations on Monday to analyze the situation.

The Parliament's Social Democrat and Liberal negotiators harshly criticized the Commission, whose new position aligned with that of far-right groups and was announced just days after the European People's Party (EPP), to which both the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, belong, had asked the government in a letter to cancel the proposal.

The Commission clarified on Tuesday, through its spokespersons, that the proposal would only affect "30 million micro-enterprises" if all of them decided to operate in the organic products market. EFE

The EU suspends negotiations on the law against eco-posturing

The European Commission announces that it will withdraw its legislative proposal against eco-posturing.