Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. DAMAGE OF OMNIBUS I FINALLY DOCUMENTED Remember the days of evidence-based policy-making? When the Commission's Better Regulation strategy was still being applied? Well, we're far away from the return of the impact assessment -- the Commission is planning to present a package revamping its rules on how to engage with stakeholders and how to estimate the impact of different policy options on 28 April. Potentially on the agenda: replace stakeholder consultation by implementation 'dialogues' to understand corporate compliance concerns, replace public consultations with an intimate 'reality check' session with a few friends in the Commission's headquarters, and followed by a quick 48-hour internal inter-service consultation. The manual will likely echo the process of the EU's deregulated corporate sustainability reporting and responsibility…

Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. ECB CLIMATE TSAR WARNS FOR FOSSIL FUEL DEPENDENCE Frank Elderson, the green central banker who joined the ECB’s Executive Board back in 2021, is stepping up his messaging on the price stability risk of fossil fuel dependence. We already knew we were not saving the planet just for the planet, but for the humans living on it. But now the framing is even further away from noble intentions to green our society: in fact, it’s all about saving our economy, as fossil fuel is a geopolitical risk before anything else. Climate campaigners will say there were right all along, but the framing of climate problems in climate terms has been a hard sell over the last years. Elderson suggests that the…

Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. RULE OF LAW: SHRINKING SPACE, SHRINKING NGOS? "The rule of law is not negotiable -- it is the foundation of our European way of life" Ursula von der Leyen promised the Parliament when asking for a second mandate in 2024. Then why does a report from the Civil Liberties Union for Europe classify eleven Member States as 'Dismantlers' or 'Sliders' when it comes to the erosion of the rule of law? Only a few countries show progress on four indicators: the justice system, anti-corruption, media freedom and checks and balances. The group warns that steps to undermine the rule of law in the United States show how fast systems can be dismantled, and double standards and fragility have been exposed across…