On 21 May 2025, the European Commission published the Omnibus IV simplification package, aimed at simplify EU rules and reduce bureaucracy across the Single Market. It was accompanied by a press release and factsheet.
The Omnibus IV contains several proposals, notably the following:
- Proposal for a Regulation to amend the Batteries Regulation EU 2023/1542, delaying the due diligence obligations by 2 years to 18 August 2027, and postponing the publication of the due diligence guidelines until 26 July 2026 (originally planned for 18 February 2025).
On this, the European Commission has opened a public consultation on the delay of the due diligence proposal, which remains open until 23 July 2025.
- Proposal for a directive and a regulation concerning to extend certain mitigating measures available for small and medium sized enterprises [SMEs] to small mid-cap enterprises. This proposal amends several legislative acts to extend specific SME-targeted regulatory relief measures to a new category of “small mid-cap companies” (SMCs). These are companies that are larger than SMEs but smaller than large enterprises (as defined in a Recommendation document, not in the proposal).
- Regarding the Batteries Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, the proposal is to extend the exemption threshold for economic operators subject to due diligence obligations from €40 million to €150 million in annual turnover.
- Regarding the F-gas Regulation (EU) 2024/573, the proposal is to limit the registration requirements in the F-gas Portal to importers that exceed certain annual F-gas thresholds, and to exporters of certain products and equipment with high GWP F-gases which are prohibited in the EU and subject to export restrictions.
- Regarding General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Regulation (EU) 2016/679, the proposal is to extend the record-keeping exemption to organizations with less than 750 employees. It also proposes to limit the obligation to maintain records to only high-risk data processing activities.
- Proposal for digitalisation and common specification measures that seeks to streamline and digitalise the obligations of economic operators across multiple EU product directives, including those related to noise emissions, pressure equipment, hazardous substances, electromagnetic compatibility, lifts, radio equipment, and more. This will be done through a harmonised set of measures aiming to modernise compliance processes, reduce administrative burden, and promote the use of digital tools in line with the EU’s New Legislative Framework. Notably, the proposal foresees the digitalisation of the EU declaration of conformity, as well as the exchanges between competent national authorities and economic operators.
Furthermore, the proposal introduces uniform rules for the use of harmonised standards and clarifies the legal fallback option when such standards are not available. To ensure consistency and reduce duplication for manufacturers, it also proposes allowing the use of the Digital Product Passport (DPP) data carrier across overlapping regulations.
The proposals are to follow the ordinary legislative procedure. This package will also be followed by an Omnibus for the Chemical Industry and a Digital package.
