{"id":47928,"date":"2026-03-19T03:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T02:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/?p=47928"},"modified":"2026-03-18T16:29:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:29:33","slug":"briefing-us-fingerprints-on-eu-deregulation-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/issues\/democracy-europe\/47928\/briefing-us-fingerprints-on-eu-deregulation-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"Briefing: US fingerprints on EU deregulation agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
\u00a9 Eric De Mildt \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Brussels<\/strong> \u2013 At the EU summit of 19 and 20 March, EU heads of state and government will discuss and agree<\/a> on the next steps to deregulate EU industries. Paragraph 48 of the draft council conclusions dated 13 March, obtained by Politico, show how national governments want the European Commission to \u201cput forward further omnibus and other simplification initiatives\u201d, in addition to directing the Commission to \u201cundertake an in-depth regulatory review of the EU acquis<\/em>\u201d or body of law.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Ursula von der Leyen and other Commissioners claim that so-called \u201csimplification\u201d could generate \u20ac15 billion a year<\/a> in \u201cadministrative savings\u201d, which is around 0.07 percent of EU GDP<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

This media brief presents some notable examples that show how the US administration under President Donald Trump is dictating a deregulation agenda to the EU, actively pushing the EU to dismantle its environmental and social standards. <\/p>\n\n

The EU anti-deforestation law or EUDR <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

In 2025, Trump reassured farmers\u2019 lobbyists<\/a> that were complaining about the 2023 EU deforestation law (EUDR) that, if they would give him \u201ca two paragraphs statement<\/em>\u201d, he would \u201cget that changed, fast<\/em>\u201d and the EU institutions \u201cwould do what they have to do<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n

These concerns were included in the framework agreement<\/a> between the EU and the US, which commits the EU \u201cto work to address the concerns of US producers and exporters regarding the EU Deforestation Regulation, with a view to avoiding undue impact on US-EU trade<\/em>\u201d, based on the premise that \u201cproduction of the relevant commodities within the territory of the United States poses negligible risk to global deforestation<\/em>\u201d. <\/p>\n\n

Recently, a US government delegation visited<\/a> Berlin, Brussels, Madrid, Paris and Rome in an attempt to persuade the EU and its member states to reopen the EUDR and ensure the law does not apply to US goods by completely revising the country benchmarking system and creating a new category of countries with \u201cnegligible risk\u201d of deforestation. The message from the delegation was that failure to do so would result in the EU losing access to key agricultural imports<\/a> from the US, including soybeans, which are widely used in the EU as animal feed. <\/p>\n\n

It should be noted that the US is already classified as a \u201clow risk\u201d country under the EUDR \u2013 which aims to eliminate products linked to deforestation \u2013 and that for this reason, US commodities and products are already subject to simplified due diligence requirements for companies and to minimal checks by competent authorities. <\/p>\n\n

Weakening sustainability due diligence reporting<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The initially approved Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive<\/a> (CSDDD) would have provided evidence on the impact on the natural environment and of local communities along the fossil fuel supply chain, including from the US. The law was one of the first casualties of the new deregulation drive. The Trump administration\u2019s lobbying activities to empty or kill that law included very active lobbying from the US embassy<\/a>, while at the same time passing the Protect USA Act<\/a>, aiming to \u201cprohibit entities integral to the national interests of the United States from participating in any foreign sustainability due diligence regulation, including the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive of the European Union<\/em>\u201d. <\/p>\n\n

Dropping the EU\u2019s climate ambition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

In addition, the US administration has targeted the EU Methane Regulation<\/a>. Methane is the second highest contributor to global warming and air pollution after CO2<\/sub> and the regulation imposes mandatory methane monitoring, reporting, and reduction requirements on fossil fuel imports, including LNG. The law, which entered into force in 2024, is now under pressure from the Trump administration in order to recognise U.S. methane laws<\/a>, which Trump recently gutted<\/a>, as equivalent to European ones. <\/p>\n\n

Increasing dependency on US energy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

At the same time the EU committed to purchasing $750 billion worth of American energy products (liquefied natural gas and oil) and investing $600 billion in the US by 2028 (the end of Trump\u2019s term) in a 2025 EU-US framework agreement<\/a>. This agreement would increase the EU\u2019s energy reliance on the US, subjugating the EU to Trump\u2019s agenda of energy dominance<\/a>, risking energy security and jeopardising the EU\u2019s climate objectives <\/a>and ongoing energy transition. The reliability of the US to uphold the agreement is also in doubt as the US has continued to make threats<\/a> that go beyond its terms and as the US Supreme Court has ruled against some of Trump\u2019s trade policies.<\/p>\n\n

Already in 2025, fracked US gas accounted for 27% of the EU\u2019s total gas imports<\/a> and 57% of its LNG imports<\/a>. Implementing the trade framework agreement, the US could already account for 40% of total gas imports and as much as 80% of its LNG imports<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

Taxing digital giants to fund the EU budget<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

In 2025 the US President Trump issued a memorandum<\/a> mandating retaliatory measures against any country that adopted a digital services tax. Soon after, the EU dropped its proposed digital tax, even if it was estimated to bring in 37.5 billion euros annually<\/a>. Many interpreted this as a clear victory for Trump<\/a>, who threatened to impose tariffs to those countries targeting US digital companies with taxes. <\/p>\n\n

Contact details<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Ariadna Rodrigo, Greenpeace EU political campaigner<\/strong>: +32 (0)479 99 69 22, ariadna.rodrigo@greenpeace.org<\/a> <\/p>\n\n

Greenpeace EU press desk<\/strong>: +32 (0)2 274 1911, pressdesk.eu@greenpeace.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brussels, \u2013 At the EU summit of 19 and 20 March, EU heads of state and government will discuss and agree on the next steps to deregulate EU industries. Paragraph…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":47929,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23,38,39,28,29],"p4-page-type":[18],"class_list":["post-47928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-democracy-europe","tag-democracy","tag-trade","tag-transparency","tag-forests","tag-fossilfuels","p4-page-type-briefing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47930,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47928\/revisions\/47930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47928"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=47928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}