Companies across the EU are in line for less paperwork, but less than Brussels had promised. The Council agreed its negotiating position today on the eighth Omnibus simplification package. Two proposals on who pays for recycling were quietly shelved.
The package, originally presented by the European Commission in December 2025, aimed to streamline six pieces of environmental legislation. The Council, under the Cyprus presidency, moved quickly on four of them. Rules on the industrial emissions portal, battery labelling and the decades-old INSPIRE directive on spatial data all made the cut.
For businesses, the changes mean less paperwork. Battery manufacturers will face simplified removability requirements, with an 18-month delay for some product categories. Livestock and aquaculture operators will see reporting obligations under the industrial emissions portal cut back.
The oldest change concerns geospatial data. Public authorities across the EU will no longer have to maintain complex spatial data networks under the INSPIRE directive. The data would instead be managed through a central EU open data portal.
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Who pays for waste
The most contentious element of the package was extended producer responsibility, or EPR. EPR rules require producers to fund the collection and recycling of their products at end of life. The Commission had proposed simplifying them, but the real sticking point was not bureaucracy: it was money.
Simplifying EPR means reshaping who pays for waste, and a vast majority of member states were not ready to settle that question. Negotiations on the two EPR proposals were discontinued, and the issue will be revisited under the upcoming Circular Economy Act, expected in autumn 2026.
The regulation on environmental assessments, another contested element, also remains unresolved. The presidency said work will continue, with the aim of reaching a negotiating position on that proposal separately.
Trilogue next, but timeline tight
With the Council’s position now set, the file moves to trilogue negotiations with the European Parliament. The “One Europe, One Market” roadmap, signed by the presidents of the Council, Parliament and Commission in Nicosia in April 2026, sets a target of concluding all simplification packages by the end of 2027. For this particular file, that deadline looks achievable only if the Parliament moves quickly and if the EPR dispute does not resurface during negotiations.
Today, we deliver on the environmental package, introducing clearer, more proportionate rules. — Marilena Raouna, Deputy Minister for European Affairs, Cyprus
The Cyprus presidency framed the outcome as a success. “Today, we deliver on the environmental package, introducing clearer, more proportionate rules that reduce unnecessary burdens while safeguarding the European Union’s high standards of environmental protection,” said Marilena Raouna, Deputy Minister for European Affairs of Cyprus.
The Commission has set a target of cutting recurring administrative costs by €37.5bn by the end of the 2024–2029 mandate. The environmental omnibus is one piece of that ambition. With two of its six proposals now stalled, it is a smaller piece than originally planned.
