cidse AND ITS MEMBER ORGANISATIONS’ Joint statement, 11 dECEMBER 2025
As Catholic social justice organisations committed to human dignity and the protection of our Common Home, we hereby express our deep concern regarding the trajectory of the Omnibus I process. This process has unveiled a disconcerting decline in democratic principles within the European Union and signifies the onset of a broader tendency towards legislative regression under the guise of ‘competitiveness’. Already in April, CIDSE supported the call by faith leaders warning of the harms that the European Commission’s Omnibus Simplification Package will inflict on communities and the environment.
Following the recent conclusion of trialogue negotiations and the agreement reached among the Commission, the Council, and the Parliament, we find it essential to present a chronological account of the developments that have led to this critical reflection:
=> February 2025 – The Commission’s Proposal: Simplification as a veil for deregulation
Announced in November 2024 and formally published in February 2025, the European Commission introduced the Omnibus Simplification Package, purportedly to “cut red tape” and “simplify” EU legislation. Instead of genuine simplification, the proposal dismantled core elements of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
What was presented as technical housekeeping became, in effect, a weakening of ethical and legal safeguards designed to protect human rights, workers, and the environment. The initiative betrayed a worrying trend: framing deregulation as efficiency and diluting the EU’s commitments to integral human development.
In two weeks, MEPs have another chance to come together and agree on a responsible, ambitious, and workable compromise, one that keeps sustainability and accountability at the heart of EU policy.
=> June 2025 – The Council’s General Approach: Intensifying the retreat
By June, the Council adopted its General Approach—a further step away from Europe’s vocation to promote justice and care for Creation. The Council’s position drastically watered-down key provisions, widening the scope of application, carving out exemptions that favour powerful economic actors. This moment marked a deepening of what Pope Francis warns against in Laudato Si’ (109): “the technocratic paradigm”, where short-term economic gains overshadow the common good.
=> November 2025 – The European Parliament’s Position: A troubling deepening of the crisis
In November, the European Parliament—the institution that used to be most aligned with social and environmental ambition—established a historic alliance with the far right, adopting a position even weaker in critical protections. This signalled a dangerous shift: the erosion of political will to defend those suffering on the frontlines of climate breakdown, conflict, land grabbing, and corporate abuse. As Catholic organisations, we lament that the institution meant to elevate the voice of citizens instead participated in diminishing essential instruments for safeguarding human rights and Creation.
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This sequence of events exposes a profound failure of the democratic values that should guide the EU: transparency, participation, and the primacy of the common good. Instead, the process was characterised by opacity, rushed negotiations, and disproportionate influence of corporate lobbyists.
Europe’s workers, businesses, and citizens deserve a framework that both protects their interests and prepares our economy for long-term success.
Evidence shows: weakening the CSDDD won’t boost competitiveness
Under the pretext of restoring “competitiveness,” the EU is retreating from its global leadership in promoting responsible business conduct, climate action, and human rights. At a moment when wildfires, floods, and heat waves show that there is no turning back from the consequences of the climate crisis, the EU risks abandoning its moral credibility and contradicts the Gospel call to uphold the dignity of every person, protect the vulnerable, and care for our common home.
Defenders of the Omnibus approach have repeatedly argued that weakening sustainability rules will make the EU “more competitive.” Yet economic research contradicts this assumption. The recent study by Prof. Johannes Jäger, examining the economic effects of the CSDDD, shows clearly that robust due diligence rules do not hinder competitiveness. On the contrary, such regulations create long-term economic resilience, level global playing fields, and reduce the enormous costs associated with human rights abuses, supply-chain disruptions, and environmental destruction.
The Omnibus Technique: A dangerous precedent
Beyond the immediate damage to sustainability legislation, the Omnibus approach sets a precedent for sweeping changes to EU laws through bundled “technical” amendments. This mechanism threatens to become a shortcut for deregulation, limiting democratic oversight and enabling future rollbacks of hard-won protections. This represents a grave moral concern. As stewards of Creation, we cannot accept legislative tactics that weaken safeguards for our planet and for those living in poverty whose voices are too often ignored.
CIDSE and its members organisations therefore urge the EU institutions to:
- Restore ambition in sustainability and human rights protections.
- Reject deregulation disguised as simplification.
- Defend democratic decision-making and resist undue corporate influence.
- Reaffirm EU leadership in the global movement for integral ecology and social justice.
“We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and one social, but rather with one complex crisis.”
(Pope Francis, LS 139)
Contact: Susana Hernández Torres, Corporate Regulation Officer, CIDSE (hernandez(at)cidse.org)
Cover photo: Stunt, March for Human Rights, Brussels, September 2025. Credit: CIDSE