Climate and Energy: EU Policy and Regulation Update for 9 April 2025
April 9, 2025
Introducing Cleary’s Climate and Energy EU Policy and Regulation Update, our enhanced bi-monthly newsletter, replacing our Climate and the Financial Sector Newsletter and covering key developments in climate-related regulation, litigation, and enforcement across Europe. Read previous issues here.
As policy and regulatory landscapes evolve, this publication will provide insights to navigating emerging risks and opportunities in the energy transition.
Priority Update – Sustainability Omnibus Package
- European Parliament adopts stop-the-clock proposal at first reading
- French Senate adopts law alleviating sustainability-related requirements
- EU Platform on Sustainable Finance publishes report on first review of the Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act
- Paolo Angelini, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Italy, comments the Omnibus Package at the conference on “Sustainability in the financial industry: old models for new scenarios?
- CONSOB sets out the criteria for 2024 non-financial disclosures audits
Priority Update – Sustainability Omnibus Package
3 April 2025 [EU] – European Parliament adopts stop-the-clock proposal at first reading
On 3 April 2025, the European Parliament plenary session formally adopted at first reading the so-called “stop-the-clock” proposal [final text available here], with no amendments to the European Commission’s proposal, initially adopted on 26 February 2025.
The proposed directive sets out a two-year postponement to sustainability reporting requirements under the CSRD for all companies that were initially supposed to start reporting in 2026 or 2027 (as regards financial years 2025 or 2026). As concerns CS3D, it postpones both the transposition deadline (to 26 July 2027) and the first-phase application to the largest companies (to 26 July 2028).
The European Parliament had elected the use of the urgent procedure, in a 1 April 2025 vote, allowing it to adopt the proposal without a committee report. The Council is now expected to formally adopt the Directive at an upcoming meeting in mid-May, without any substantial amendments to the Commission’s proposal.
Please refer to the previous version of our newsletter [available here] for a comprehensive summary of the Sustainability Omnibus package.
3-8 April 2025 [France] – French Senate adopts law alleviating sustainability-related requirements
The French Senate adopted a law proposal concerning various provisions of adaptation to European Union law, containing several amendments linked to the recent Sustainability Omnibus package [final text available here]. Amongst significant amendments, the law provides for the following:
- Two-year postponement of reporting requirements under CSRD for in-scope entities, from financial year 2025.
- Entities required to publish a sustainability report in 2025 (for the 2024 financial year) may omit the phased disclosure requirements set out in Appendix C of ESRS 1 for the first three financial years, subject to the employee thresholds, where applicable.
- Disclosing entities may leave out information that could be detrimental to their competitive position from their sustainability report – if this omission does not hinder the fair and balanced understanding of the company’s situation and impact, and if the information is still shared with the Financial Markets Authority (AMF).
- Alleviation of criminal sanctions: The French legislator had previously introduced criminal sanctions for company directors failing to comply with certain CSRD rules. These sanctions – which were not required by the EU directive – have now been removed, and have not been replaced by administrative penalties.
European Union
1 April 2025 [EU] – EU Platform on Sustainable Finance publishes report on first review of the Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act
The EU Platform on Sustainable Finance (the “Platform”) has published a report on its first review of the Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act and the development of technical screening criteria for a list of new economic activities [available here].
In particular, the report includes recommendations on the Platform’s first review of the technical screening criteria of the economic activities included in the Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act, along with technical screening criteria for a list of new economic activities.
These criteria are intended to define whether these activities make a substantial contribution to at least one of the environmental objectives defined by the Taxonomy Regulation – all the while ensuring they do no significant harm to any environmental objective.
Italy
2 April 2025 [Italy] – Paolo Angelini, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Italy, comments the Omnibus Package at the conference on “Sustainability in the financial industry: old models for new scenarios?”
On April 2, 2025, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Italy, Paolo Angelini, expressed his concerns on the Omnibus Package in his introductory speech at the conference “Sustainability in the financial industry: old models for new scenarios?”, hosted in Milan by the Bank of Italy [the speech is available here, in Italian].
In particular, he stated that “If it is true [..] that many of the underlying reasons that justify an environmental commitment remain unchanged, the EU should avoid the risk of excessive course corrections. For example, if the recently proposed Omnibus Directive is adopted in its current form, the number of Italian companies subject to sustainability reporting requirements would be reduced by around 85% compared to what is currently foreseen under the CSRD. Large companies that already make sustainability reporting would be exempted, resulting in marginal or no benefits, while investors would be deprived of important information for accurate risk assessment. Such a measure would go beyond the desirable goal of simplifying the regulatory framework and could even create additional complexity”. As to the additional complexity, he refers to the need that member States that have already transposed the CSRD (e.g., Italy and France) revisit their national laws to prevent that substantial changes to the reporting requirements undermine a level playing field.
26 March 2025 [Italy] – CONSOB sets out the criteria for 2024 non-financial disclosures audits
On 26 March 2025, the Italian Financial Market Authority (CONSOB) adopted Resolution No. 23484 [available here, in Italian], setting out the criteria for selecting Italian companies whose 2024 non-financial disclosures will be subject to audit by CONSOB.
In particular, in addition to randomly selecting a certain number of companies, CONSOB will also select:
- listed companies, based on the supervisory priorities identified by ESMA in the European Common Enforcement Priorities 2023, with reference to climate and other environmental matters, in order to audit both financial and non-financial statements;
- other companies, based on their representativeness of the relevant sector and specific riskiness based on their climate and taxonomy disclosures included in non-financial statements;
- additional companies for which CONSOB has identified areas for improvement in the content of non-financial disclosures or in the procedures for data collection and reporting.