Brussels accused of undermining democracy in plans to relax lawmaking standards

EU executive says global instability is forcing it to weaken long-standing guardrails.

EU Commission in Brussels — Usually, after the European Commission proposes a law, the Council of the EU and the Parliament produce competing versions and then they hash out a deal in three-way negotiations. | Alicia Windzio/picture alliance via Getty Images

February 5, 2026 7:56 pm CET

BRUSSELS — Dozens of civil society and industry groups have warned the European Commission it will undermine democracy if it pushes ahead with a plan to simplify its rulemaking process.

The Commission said in January it wants to loosen its internal process for writing new laws because it needs to react more quickly to an “ever-changing and volatile geopolitical environment.”

To do this, the EU executive wants to propose new guidelines allowing it to minimize lengthy impact assessments and public consultation when drafting laws. This would allow it to take “swift and decisive action,” it said in a call for public feedback on the idea.

But dozens of submissions from NGOs, trade unions, academics, industry groups and private citizens, published on the Commission’s website, argue this plan will result in opaque decision-making that does not properly assess the economic, social and environmental impact of new laws.

“When the [Commission’s decision-making] machine is sidestepped, as recently by the von der Leyen Commission, the result is bad laws influenced by powerful corporations and foreign governments,” said ClientEarth lead lawyer Sebastian Bechtel.

The Better Regulation guidelines, last updated in 2021, outline steps the EU should take when drafting laws. These must be “informed by the best available evidence,” and any proposals that would be costly or have significant economic, environmental or social impacts require an impact assessment.

But in the face of an increasingly hostile global trade environment, political instability, defense needs, and anti-EU sentiment growing in many of its member countries, the old ways of rulemaking are no longer fit for purpose, the Commission argues.

The updated rulebook “should entail accelerated pathways for time-sensitive initiatives to respond to pressing needs and allow the Commission to act in situations of urgency,” reads the document.

The Austrian Trade Union Federation said that the Commission was contradicting “its own stated objectives and core principles of good administration, transparency and accountability” and that it “rejects the use of urgency as a justification to bypass democratic safeguards.”

Environmental groups struck a similar tone. NGO Oceana, legal charity ClientEarth and the Health and Environment Alliance all warned against the direction of the Commission’s Better Regulation agenda. Over 50 NGOs published a joint statement on the issue on Wednesday.

Civil society groups aren’t alone in urging caution. Industry players also warned against using “political urgency” as an excuse for not doing solid impact assessments. That included the Swedish Food Federation and French bank Crédit Agricole.

“Comprehensive impact assessments remain essential” to understand effects of new legislation on existing legal frameworks, said the European Banking Federation in its submission. It said it was concerned by the “increasing number of instances in which impact assessments are omitted without sufficient and transparent justification.”

The proposed changes come as the European Commission is going full steam ahead on its simplification agenda. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law and policy at HEC Paris, went further, accusing the Commission of “weaponizing geopolitical threats to dismantle the standards that protect us.”

“It is a calculated attempt to institutionalize deregulation through the back door, trading public accountability for a closed-door agenda and quietly dismantling the citizens’ right to shape EU law,” he said.

Defenders of the idea — according to the feedback submitted to date — are few and far between. The European Commission did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment on the feedback.

Deregulation fever

The proposed changes come as the Commission is going full steam ahead on its simplification agenda, with 10 proposals for deregulation — known in Brussels as “omnibus” bills — on the table so far in agriculture, tech, defense, chemicals and environmental protection.

The bloc has already received a lot of criticism for rushing these proposals through without allowing for proper impact assessments to be conducted.

Last November the European Ombudsman Teresa Anjinho slammed the Commission for maladministration because it did not respect the guidelines when drafting several of its simplification bills.

“Speed must not come at the expense of minimum procedural standards, because those standards are what ultimately guarantee predictability and trust” Anjinho said last month, at an event organized by the Board of the German Retail Federation.

“Sudden regulatory reversals risk creating a sense of unfairness, discouraging early compliance in the future and introducing precisely the uncertainty that simplification is meant to reduce,” she added.