The Dismantling of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive: From Sustainability to Simplification

Details

Supervisors

Fontan, Clément ; Delreux, Tom

Faculty

Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales, politiques et de communication

Degree label

Master [120] en études européennes, à finalité spécialisée: gouvernance et sociétés européennes

Abstract

enThe Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDDD) was presented as a key and ambitious step in EU sustainability policies, which took two years to be negotiated and approved, only to be challenged by the same institution that had proposed it, just seven months after it entered into force. The new Omnibus I package on Simplification, published by the Commission in February 2025, led to a large-scale dismantling of the CSDDD. This dissertation examines how and why the dismantling occurred. To do so, It explores and rebuilds the trajectory of the dismantling through an explaining-outcome process-tracing design built on two hypotheses: the first one shows how a change in parliamentary majority in 2024 produced a Commission which shifted its priority from sustainability to competitiveness, allowing for anti-CSDDD pushes to fully go through. The second one demonstrates how interests were shaped at the national level, especially in France, Germany, and Italy, through corporate actors' pressures, and how these interests were then brought to the supranational level and gained momentum also due to a competitiveness-focused argumentative delegitimation. The study revolves around a case of high-visibility dismantling, where deregulation became a claimable political credit rather than something to hide through delegated or implementing acts. It shows a shift of the Commission from passive to active dismantler, and provides a new dimension to Argumentative Delegitimation, making a distinction between evidence-based delegitimation and purely discursive delegitimation.