The upcoming revision of the Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Law-Making offers a crucial opportunity to embed competitiveness across all stages of policymaking, strengthen impact assessments, improve stakeholder consultations and align compliance timelines with business realities. 

The Circular Economy can address longstanding business challenges and strengthen the Single Market by revising the Waste Framework Directive and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive, re-opening some provisions of the Waste Shipment Regulation and the Single Market Transparency Directive, promptly adopting secondary legislation under the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation and implementing financial flanking measures where necessary. 

To increase the EU’s competitiveness and reduce administrative burden, regulators must simplify the Classification, Labelling and Packaging Regulation, especially requirements on font size, label formatting, advertising, distance sales and transition times.

Through targeted simplification of the Defence Procurement Directive, the European Commission can accelerate procurement, support joint acquisition and ensure access to best-in-class technologies, which are critical for delivering the capabilities Member States need to deter aggression by 2030 and to strengthen the capacity and innovation of the European defence industrial base.

A well-designed Digital Fairness Act must focus on regulatory coherence, legal certainty and risk-based intervention to strengthen trust, preserve innovation and enhance competitiveness.

As discussions on the AI Omnibus approach finalisation, co-legislators should support crucial amendments – including a fixed extension for high-risk AI compliance and an extension for transparency obligations across all AI systems – as well as the European Commission’s proposal to exempt AI systems that perform narrow or procedural tasks from the registration requirements in high-risk sectors under Annex III.

The Digital Omnibus on data and cybersecurity proposal takes steps to support digital innovation in the EU, but co-legislators must make practical adjustments, with much greater ambition needed in cybersecurity and fine-tuning required in data and privacy regulations to further ease compliance, improve legal certainty and reinforce Europe’s competitiveness.

With the Environmental Omnibus, the EU can tackle overlaps, inconsistencies and excessive reporting obligations to improve legal clarity, enhance predictability and strengthen the business case for investing in solutions to support the EU’s environmental and competitive objectives.

To strengthen the EU’s competitiveness, the proposed European Competitiveness Fund should include predictable eligibility criteria, increase transparency and stakeholder involvement, and leverage industrial partnerships.

The Food and Feed Safety Omnibus is a chance to address the EU's fragmented and unpredictable agri-food regulatory framework by reducing delays, improving consistency and easing compliance burdens that limit market access.

Instead of broadening the already excessive reach of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) and adding to already disproportionate costs and complexities for businesses, the FSR revision should hone its scope and thresholds to focus only on subsidies with a demonstrable EU nexus, align its treatment of foreign incentives with EU State aid rules and adjust its procedures to be more workable for businesses and authorities.

While Omnibus I provides much-needed certainty, it does not yet give companies the clarity they need on future implementation measures. True simplification comes with accompanying measures that provide predictability and facilitate sustainability investments.

As the revision of the Public Procurement Directive moves forward, it should prioritise practical ‘how to buy’ reforms that increase market access and ‘what to buy’ reforms that help buyers select best-in-class products.

The revision of the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals Regulation (REACH) must deliver genuine simplification by prioritising science-based risk assessments, avoiding the broad grouping of substances without clear data and enhancing regulatory predictability.

The Tax Omnibus presents an opportunity to address duplicative, fragmented and resource-intensive business requirements by modernising the EU tax framework, notably by implementing Pillar 2.