On 17 December 2019, the European Parliament announced that negotiators from the European Parliament and Council of the EU had reached an agreement concerning the so-called “taxonomy Regulation” which sets out criteria to determine whether an economic activity is environmentally sustainable.

The agreement reached by the European Parliament negotiating team will first need approval by the Environment Committee and Economic Affairs Committee and will then be put to a plenary vote.

The agreed version of the text of the Regulation is yet to be published.

“All financial products which claim to be sustainable will have to prove it following strict and ambitious EU criteria. The compromise also includes a clear mandate for the Commission to start working on defining environmentally harmful activities at a later stage. Phasing out those activities and investments is indeed as important to achieve climate-neutrality as supporting decarbonised activities”, said Economic Affairs Committee rapporteur Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, NL).