EU drops the Green Claims Directive. Pre-checks for eco ads will not come

The European Commission has dropped the Green Claims Directive, the planned law that would have made companies get their environmental ad claims checked before using them. The decision is listed in the Commission’s work programme for 2027, published on Wednesday 4 November, ESG Today and Austria’s Horizont reported.

The Commission says the Council never agreed a position

The Commission proposed the directive in March 2023. It would have set up independent checks of green claims before they reached consumers.

In its work programme, the Commission explains why it is pulling the file. According to ESG Today, it says the proposal “has been pending with co-legislators more than three years”. It adds that EU governments in the Council failed to agree a negotiating mandate in June 2024. Horizont quotes the same document: the rules are unlikely to win member states’ support within a reasonable time.

Brussels first signalled the withdrawal in June 2025

The directive had been in trouble for more than a year. In June 2025 the Commission said it intended to withdraw it, after pressure from the centre-right EPP group in the European Parliament. Shortly after, it said the withdrawal depended on whether micro-businesses would be exempt. ESG Today notes that lawmakers had already taken micro-businesses out of scope. The file then sat paused until this week’s decision.

Generic green slogans are still banned under a 2024 law

The end of the Green Claims Directive does not mean green claims are unregulated. The separate Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition directive stays in force. Under it, the EU has banned generic green claims in ads since 27 September.

National regulators also keep acting on their own. The UK’s advertising watchdog, for example, banned three travel ads over eco-hotel claims under existing rules.

The winners are companies that sell with green claims: they avoid a new approval step before every campaign. The losers are verification bodies, which lose a market the directive would have created across all 27 member states.