Ursula von der Leyen has kept her promise to swiftly present a far-reaching initiative to reduce bureaucracy. And has earned praise for it. But not only praise, of course.

Many of the objections raised by critics cannot be dismissed out of hand. The scaling back of notification and reporting obligations penalises those who have already implemented Europe's previous requirements without long delays – companies and national governments alike. And, of course, it will be more difficult to achieve the climate targets set if the EU Commission now wants to allow very generous exemptions, and reduce the scope of requirements. In this respect, the acute pressure on many companies to transform themselves into a climate-friendly business model will be reduced.

However, the excessive demands placed on companies (and „excessive demands“ can hardly be measured objectively, but is subjective) with reporting obligations have reached a new dimension with sustainability reports. Companies complaining about regulation is old hat. However, the fact that they declare that nothing – neither high energy prices, nor a lack of skilled labour, nor problems accessing capital – causes them as much pain as the bureaucratic burden is a new phenomenon. Europe's politicians had to react to this.

The EU Commission has done some things right. The majority of the proposed changes concern exemptions from reporting obligations for medium-sized companies. This is clever, as SMEs have more trouble ensuring compliance than corporations with legal departments. However, it is precisely these companies that play a key role in determining the overall economic investment volume, particularly in Germany.

It is foreseeable that not everything that has now been proposed will pass through the Council and Parliament unscathed. Nevertheless, it has become clear that the EU is finally paying more attention to the bureaucratic burden that EU regulations and directives entail. The current „omnibus“ package has much more impetus than previous attempts to streamline bureaucracy, for example by Edmund Stoiber.

The message of the day is – this time they mean business. For the economy, with an eye on what will be coming out of Brussels in the future, this is an important signal. One with which the EU can regain the trust of investors that good regulation does not make promising business models more difficult, but rather makes them possible in the first place.