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Today, the European Parliament adopted its Omnibus VI report, including the revision of the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) Regulation, by 540 votes to 60. The outcome supports a more streamlined framework by easing the regulatory burden on value chains that rely on chemicals and sending a positive signal of the EU’s commitment to reducing unnecessary complexity.

With the Council’s position agreed in November 2025, the Parliament’s report marks the final step before trilogues, which will conclude negotiations on the targeted revision of the CLP Regulation.

The report largely aligns with the Commission’s simplification agenda and strengthens the CLP Regulation’s overall workability, especially with regards to:

• Transition periods, setting 18 months following classification updates and allowing digital contact information to be updated on the label in line with suppliers’ regular update cycles. This better reflects supply chain realities.

• Advertising and distance sales requirements, appropriately excluding business-to-business settings while ensuring consumers remain protected; and

• Label legibility requirements, with more proportionate minimum font sizes and rules on background contrast, spacing and overall layout. However, further simplification is still needed to ensure sufficient flexibility for businesses.

While the report represents a constructive step forward, trilogues should address remaining constraints and clarify language that is currently difficult to interpret, including further simplification on font sizes and advertising requirements in business-to-consumer settings. These negotiations should draw on the more proportionate approaches of the Commission and the Council.

Maintaining a strong focus on simplification will be key to further alleviating administrative burdens and strengthening the EU’s resilience and competitiveness.

On 8 July 2025, the Commission presented the Omnibus VI simplification package, reopening key legislation such as the CLP Regulation, which entered into force in December 2024. The Omnibus addresses overlaps and inconsistencies that create practical challenges and, in some cases, make compliance unworkable.

Upcoming trilogues can streamline the framework and reduce unnecessary burdens. This paper sets out targeted recommendations on the positions that can achieve meaningful simplification during the inter-institutional negotiations.

The new EU-US strategic partnership on critical minerals marks a positive step forward for the transatlantic relationship, demonstrating how EU-US cooperation can deliver benefits for businesses on both sides of the Atlantic. Critical minerals sit at the heart of modern technologies and industrial value chains, essential to products like semiconductors and future energy technologies. This strategic partnership will help provide American and European companies with a more secure supply of these inputs. More broadly, the agreement can support the EU and US economies in reducing strategic dependencies in global critical minerals trade – a shared challenge.

Beyond critical minerals, the strategic partnership points to an opportunity for a new chapter in EU-US cooperation built around shared economic and strategic priorities. The two sides have a greater impact when using their combined weight to address shared challenges. Pursuing the kind of cooperation outlined in the strategic partnership should be a priority as the two sides build on the August 2025 EU-US Joint Statement, with further opportunities for coordination on issues such as securing industrial supply chains for AI development, tackling non-market trading practices and bolstering transatlantic cyber resilience.