Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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There are six proposals in front of us today. I propose to run through the six of these collectively to give a brief indication of what they relate to. If people have questions on any one of them, we will bank them all then and the committee will go into private session if people want further information on any particular one of these proposals or all of them, as the case may be. It is only when we have concluded that process that we can formally agree then to approve these proposals before us.

The first one today is COM (2025) 80 and the dates from which member states shall apply certain corporate sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements. Briefly, that means that the proposal before us is that these requirements should apply to companies that have more than 5,000 employees. The view is that the target was so low was that it was an undue and unnecessary burden on smaller companies. The proposal is that it should only apply to large businesses with 5,000 employees plus.

The next proposal, COM (2025) 81, is another proposal of similar type. It proposes to reduce the scope of EU companies having to report, again only larger companies, with the undertakings of 1,000 plus employees.

Part of it was, without that limit, smaller companies would be subject to undue costs and time producing these reports. The proposal before us from the EU is that it would only apply to companies with 1,000-plus employees.

Next is COM (2025) 84. This is relates to the European Parliament and Council amending regulations related to the InvestEU programme. As of June last year, the InvestEU programme was estimated to have mobilised investments of approximately €280 billion. Obviously, it is an EU investment programme. The purpose of this is to increase the EU guarantee up to €2.5 billion, which is much enhanced compared with what it is. It has given the member states the possibility, if they choose to do so, to contribute in full to the financial instrument. It is an EU investment programme and it is up to countries to contribute as they see fit. It is currently, as I said, at €280 billion, but it wants to go to almost ten times that if the need arises. This is the proposal to increase that guarantee to €2.5 billion.

The next one before us is COM (2025) 87, which is a proposal to amend a current regulation regarding the carbon border adjustment mechanism. The objective of this is in respect of which importers can be exempt from the carbon border adjustment mechanism, which currently stands on any import worth €150. Instead, importers will be required to declare imports once they exceed a 50-tonne limit of carbon. The EC advises that this alternation is expected to exempt around 90% of importers from the carbon border adjustment mechanism, and it will capture 99% of the embedded emissions. They are saying we will still capture 99% of the embedded emissions through this mechanism but they feel it is important to make that change without, effectively, any significant loss in capturing these border adjustment mechanisms dealing with carbon.

The next proposal is COM (2025) 100, which pertains to non-financial commercial real estate figures related to building permits, construction starts, commercial real estate price indices, commercial rent indices and values of transactions of commercial estates. It is merely a statistic-gathering mechanism. It is not affecting the businesses directly; rather it is about statistics. The proposal just relates to the gathering of statistics.

The final one before us, COM (2025) 106, relates to the protection of wolves, namely, Canis lupus. I looked that up and that is the grey wolf. Bear with me while I find the exact term. At the moment, the wolves are a "strictly protected" species but it is proposed to amend that to a "protected" species. The purpose is each country can continue to legislate for them by way of their own regulations to continue to have them categorised as a strictly protected species. That will not now be an EU requirement, however, and the wolves will be considered a protected species from an EU point of view. Every individual country can accept that and work with that or, if they want to maintain the original status of strictly protected, a country is free to do that. That is the essence of what is here. It gives a bit more flexibility, depending on the nature of the country and, I presume, the population of wolves in particular areas. There will be a baseline for every country that will be protected, and how strictly protected is then a matter for the countries to make their own regulations on as to whether they want to keep the current strict regime or not.

These are the six proposals. If people have questions on individual proposals then we will called the Oireachtas advisers, that is, the research team in the Oireachtas, to answer. Rather than working on them one by one, I have given an outline. Were we to ask the officials to respond to a question then the committee would have to go into private session.

I have summarised the 200 pages into a few short words. I hope I got the essence of what is involved; I am not pretending that I did. Are there any questions and if there are, would members like the officials to respond as they are the people with the knowledge?