The European Ombudsman has opened an inquiry into how the European Commission works on what is considered “urgent” legislative proposals, such as the recent revisions to the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy (CAP).
The inquiry also concerns how the Commission assesses whether its proposals are consistent with the climate-neutrality goals of the European Climate Law.
Environmental organisations raised concerns with the Ombudsman about CAP proposals which were adopted earlier in the year to provide farmers with greater flexibility in complying with EU environmental protection rules.
The proposal came in response to protests by farmers in several EU member states against certain EU rules causing burdens.
With the legislative proposal in question the commission aimed at providing farmers with greater flexibility in complying with certain EU rules for the protection of the environment.
The commission gave final approval for a review of CAP, with changes for some rules coming into force by the end of May.
Among the terms of the review, small farms under 10ha were made exempt from controls and penalties related to compliance with conditionality requirements.
A complaint from ClientEarth and BirdLife Europe and Central Asia, has questioned whether the EU Commission had sufficiently examined whether the changes affected the long-term environmental sustainability of EU agriculture.
They also questioned whether the public had been appropriately consulted on the Commission’s legislative proposal. This step is required under the Commission’s internal ‘Better Regulation Guidelines and Toolbox’.
As a first step, the Ombudsman has asked the commission to reply to a series of questions.
These include whether it has internal procedures for deciding on whether to bypass impact assessment requirements for urgent legislative proposals and how it observes the principle of evidence-based decision-making in these circumstances.
The Ombudsman has asked the Commission to reply to the set questions by December 16 2024.