EU Commission announces plans to reduce the burden of reporting obligations by 25%

In its 2024 work program dated 17.10.2023(https://commission.europa.eu/publications/2024-commission-work-programme-key-documents_en), the EU Commission announces measures to significantly reduce the burden of reporting obligations in the European Economic Area.

Among other things, customs formalities and requirements for statistical data are to be revised in such a way that duplication is eliminated and the entire processes are optimized based on digital technology.

In order to give companies more time to adapt to the new requirements, the reporting deadlines for the sector-specific ESR standards will be postponed. In addition, the threshold values for various reporting obligations are to be adjusted so that over one million companies can expect significantly less complexity here.

The Commission also intends to simplify the requirements for reports in accordance with the EU taxonomy by adopting materiality in line with the ESR standards. Accordingly, companies will only have to analyze business processes that are material to them.

The Commission wants to make the supply chain law planned at European level (Corporate Sustainability Due Dilligance Directive, CSDDD) as efficient as possible for companies with regard to reporting obligations.

Coupled with digitalization, which should enable data to be exchanged and reused across Europe, the EU Commission sees the development of artificial intelligence as the core of the digitalization strategy.

It will therefore be interesting to see what innovations await us in 2024 and how companies can technically adapt to them.