Reporting requirements: More needed to cut 25% of red tape and unlock Europe’s competitiveness

DIGITALEUROPE supports President Von Der Leyen wholeheartedly in her efforts to reduce reporting burdens for companies in Europe, but more can be done than announced in today’s initiative to rationalise reporting obligations. We have concrete proposals on how to do it.

To reach the 25% target set out in her State of the Union speech, the Commission will need to focus more on how to implement digital legislation, both current and future. Laws like the AI Act, Data Act and Cyber Resilience Act create a very high risk of fragmentation and overlap with existing regulation, such as GDPR rules on data transfers. 

Director General of DIGITALEUROPE, Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl said:  

“European companies across all sectors are struggling to scale in Europe, and they are becoming less and less global competitive due to a fragmented costly European home-market. To reach the ambitious target set by President Von Der Leyen, the Commission and Member States need to change the way they work, and that includes legislation still on the table. We cannot be creating 27 new national offices for each new law”  

The initiative contains good proposals like postponing the adoption of sector-specific European sustainability reporting criteria to 2026, several mentions of the Digital Product Passport, and streamlining business to government data sharing in financial supervision. But to make the most of this opportunity, we should reevaluate the entire stock of existing and future digital laws, and the interplay between them. This is essential to shift business resources away from paperwork and towards the development of data-driven services, enabling Europe to reach our Digital Decade goals. 

DIGITALEUROPE members have outlined examples of overlaps in laws, duplication of reporting and unnecessary bureaucratic complications. Examples include the risks of fragmented implementation of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D), inconsistencies in national implementations of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, and the varied frequency, format and definitions for reporting under the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD) across Member States.