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Association Française des Entreprises Privées / French Association of Large Companies

AFEP

The French Association of Large Companies represents major French businesses and advocates for favorable economic policies with French and EU authorities.

Lobbying Activity

Meeting with Valère Moutarlier (Deputy Director-General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs)

7 Jan 2026 · Clean Industrial deal implementation and Single market

Large French companies urge voluntary and simpler EU Taxonomy rules

4 Dec 2025
Topic — The initiative reviews environmental criteria to update and simplify the EU taxonomy.
Message — Afep recommends making the Taxonomy voluntary and creating a framework to recognize activities in transition. They also seek to include recent innovations and simplify the complex "Do No Significant Harm" criteria.1234
Why — Simplifying criteria would lower compliance costs and reduce the administrative burden on companies.56
Impact — Environmental groups lose transparency as companies might stop reporting on certain projects.78
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Meeting with Gilles Boyer (Member of the European Parliament)

20 Nov 2025 · CBCR; OECD Pillar 2; ATAD.

French large companies urge ambitious digital simplification agenda

14 Oct 2025
Topic — The European Commission is consulting on simplifying digital regulations through a new omnibus package.
Message — AFEP calls for a regulatory pause and the repeal of the outdated ePrivacy Directive. They also request a one-year delay for rules governing high-risk AI systems.123
Why — These simplifications would reduce legal uncertainty and allow companies to use data more freely for AI development.45
Impact — Privacy-focused browser providers could lose influence as AFEP opposes centralizing cookie management under their control.6
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French Business Group Urges Broader State Aid Access for Large Companies

6 Oct 2025
Topic — EU review of rules exempting certain state aid from prior Commission approval.
Message — The association requests removing size-based restrictions on regional aid, allowing support for operating costs and compliance investments, and raising aid intensity rates. They argue current rules exclude large companies from regional programs and fail to reflect industrial project economics.123
Why — This would enable their members to access regional investment incentives and operating support currently restricted to smaller firms.45
Impact — Small and medium enterprises lose preferential access to regional aid programs designed to support their growth.6
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French business group backs EU nature credit framework with conditions

30 Sept 2025
Topic — European Commission's roadmap for developing voluntary nature credit market standards.
Message — The association requests clear separation between project developers, certifiers and registries. They emphasize nature credits must remain voluntary and complementary to national compensation schemes, with harmonized baselines across Member States.123
Why — This would reduce regulatory uncertainty and compliance costs for member companies investing in nature projects.45
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French Industry Demands Carbon Credit Flexibility for ETS Compliance

22 Sept 2025
Topic — EU regulation establishing certification methodologies for permanent carbon removal activities.
Message — The organization requests that certified carbon removal credits be usable for EU ETS compliance without restriction to residual emissions. They demand consistency across EU climate regulations and alignment with international standards before detailed regulations proceed.123
Why — This would give their members immediate flexibility to meet emissions targets using removal credits.45
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French business group seeks flexibility in EU whistleblower rules

18 Sept 2025
Topic — Evaluation of the EU Whistleblower Protection Directive implementation and effectiveness.
Message — The association requests flexibility for corporate groups to centralize whistleblowing procedures across entities, rather than the current rigid entity-based approach. They want internal reporting prioritized as the first step before external channels. They also seek harmonization of fragmented rules across Member States on data retention and processing.123
Why — This would reduce compliance costs and allow pooling expert staff across subsidiaries.45
Impact — Whistleblowers in subsidiaries lose direct access to local reporting mechanisms and protections.67
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AFEP urges EU to prioritize incentives for green corporate fleets

8 Sept 2025
Topic — EU consultation on setting minimum zero-emission requirements for corporate vehicle fleet registrations.
Message — AFEP requests a stable regulatory framework that prioritizes economic incentives over restrictive mandates. They call for clear definitions of zero-emission vehicles and different rules for utility vehicles.123
Why — Harmonized rules and financial incentives would lower the costs of fleet transitions.45
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Meeting with Stéphane Séjourné (Executive Vice-President) and

5 Sept 2025 · - Compétitivité des entreprises - Marché intérieur - Protection de la souveraineté et du pouvoir d’achat - Relation US/EU

Meeting with Manuel Mateo Goyet (Acting Head of Unit Communications Networks, Content and Technology)

3 Sept 2025 · Positions de l’AFEP sur la régulation européenne du cloud et de l’IA.

Meeting with Wopke Hoekstra (Commissioner) and

22 Jul 2025 · Meeting the climate action targets.

AFEP urges EU to harmonize employee share ownership rules

8 Jul 2025
Topic — The Commission is consulting on a European blueprint for savings and investment products.
Message — AFEP requests an EU recommendation to support employee share ownership and overcome national legal disparities. They also call for more attractive European markets and simplified sustainable finance rules.12
Why — Standardized rules would help large companies implement share plans more quickly while reducing consulting costs.34
Impact — Environmental groups would lose strict regulations that prioritize only projects already considered fully sustainable.5
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Meeting with Stéphane Séjourné (Executive Vice-President) and

26 Jun 2025 · Compétitivité; relations USE-UE, CSRD/CS3D, Simplification

Response to Savings and Investments Union: Directive fostering EU market integration and efficient supervision

5 Jun 2025

AFEP, the French Association of Large Companies, is happy to contribute to this call for evidence to address issues related to European supervision. The Commission indicates that it will assess ways to achieve more efficient and unified supervision of capital markets, as indicated in the Competitiveness Compass and in the Savings and Investments Union Communication. In this regard, AFEP agrees that the EU needs to work towards ESMA supervision as the single regulator for certain activities. Pan-European market infrastructures and asset managers see benefits in a single supervision authority to ensure a true level-playing field with subsidiaries of global financial firms operating from a single country. A focus is needed on adjustments that will facilitate the ability of European financial market infrastructure (FMI) to deliver positive and harmonised outcomes for the real economy and citizens. At this point, supervision of non-FMI listed companies should remain at national level. There is also a need to tailor the regulatory regime applicable by acknowledging the concept of a group of FMIs operating in more than one country in the EU. The condition for these groups to fully operate on a consolidated basis is the need for a true single rulebook, no local gold-plating and fully harmonized supervision. These consolidated groups should be allowed to organise the group and its functions as if it were one legal entity. Only then can financial market infrastructures create full value and efficiency. In addition, AFEP considers that targeted amendments to the Founding Regulations establishing the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) should be adopted regarding the following points: Include competitiveness and economic growth in the mandate of the ESAs. The mandate of EBA, EIOPA and ESMA) could be extended to include competitiveness and contribution to economic growth as secondary objectives, as has been done in the UK for the market (FCA) and prudential (PRA) regulators. Strengthen the power of "no-action letters". This power was introduced in the last reform of the ESAs, but its scope was limited. We need to go further.
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Response to Revision of EU rules on sustainable finance disclosure

28 May 2025

AFEP, the French Association of Large Companies, welcomes this call for evidence on the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). AFEP Members support the objectives of the SFDR to attract private funding to facilitate the transition towards greater sustainability and help European companies to seize competitive opportunities. AFEP considers however that the SFDR (the Regulation) is not fit for purpose and agrees with the feedback received by the Commission during the previous assessment and the problems identified regarding the implementation of the Regulation which is complex and costly : a lack of legal clarity on key concepts, the limited relevance of certain disclosure requirements and overlaps and inconsistencies with other parts of the Sustainable Finance Framework. The forthcoming review of the Regulation should address these issues. Furthermore, since the Regulation is part of a broader package of sustainability disclosure rules adopted to deliver on the objectives of the Green Deal as the Commission puts it it is closely related with the Taxonomy Regulation, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and other legislations such as the Benchmark Regulation. The review of the SFDR should also be an opportunity to review the Taxonomy and Benchmark Regulations. Please find attached our detailed contribution.
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Meeting with Pietro Fiocchi (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur) and Association des Constructeurs Européens de Motocycles

20 May 2025 · Tematiche ambientali

Meeting with Olivier Guersent (Director-General Competition)

19 May 2025 · - EU competitiveness - Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI) - Mergers in the telecom sector

Meeting with Gilles Boyer (Member of the European Parliament)

12 May 2025 · Simplification Omnibus

Meeting with Arthur Corbin (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné)

15 Apr 2025 · Simplification

Meeting with Luis Planas Herrera (Cabinet of Commissioner Jessika Roswall)

10 Apr 2025 · Green claims

Meeting with Martin Merlin (Director Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union) and Deutsches Aktieninstitut and

8 Apr 2025 · Commission Communication on the Savings and Investments Union (SIU) and Commission Omnibus Simplification package proposals concerning the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)

Meeting with Daniele Calisti (Head of Unit Competition)

28 Mar 2025 · Upcoming revision of the merger guidelines and ongoing discussions on the introduction of call-in provisions in France in the aftermath of the Court of Justice decision in the Illumina case.

Response to Taxonomy Delegated Acts – amendments to make reporting simpler and more cost-effective for companies

26 Mar 2025

AFEP, the French Association of Large Companies, welcomes the opportunity to comment on the amendments to the Taxonomy Delegated Acts. AFEP members support the objective to alleviate and simplify reporting requirements and the amendments put forward by the Commission. While acknowledging that these amendments would reduce reporting burden, AFEP members consider that the Taxonomy Regulation should be made voluntary for all undertakings taking into account that costs of compliance with the Taxonomy significantly outweigh the benefits. Furthermore, AFEP members consider that the requirement to publish the OpEx indicator should be removed. As a matter of fact, the OpEx KPI is not useful and very burdensome to calculate. As for Appendix C, it has proven to be a major obstacle for companies trying to demonstrate alignment. AFEP members therefore support deleting the additional paragraph after point (f) of Appendix C. Another solution could be to redraft Appendix C and consider that compliance with existing legislations should suffice to meet the DNSH criteria for pollution prevention and control. Additional improvements are also necessary and AFEP members support removing the obligation to disclose adjusted Turnover and CapEx KPIs to take into account green bonds issued, deleting the template for gas and nuclear activities and the KPIs related to the trading book, fees and commission, FinGuar and financial conglomerate applicable to credit institutions. As regards the proposed amendments, clarifications are needed on how to implement the 10% threshold (the threshold should be assessed individually for each economic activities eligible to the Taxonomy and not cumulatively) and disclosures required for non-material activities. Please refer to our detailed comments in the paper attached.
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Meeting with Valérie Hayer (Member of the European Parliament) and Fédération bancaire française

19 Mar 2025 · Omnibus Simplification

Meeting with Massimiliano Kadar (Head of Unit Competition)

18 Mar 2025 · Exchange of views on the Commission’s Draft Guidelines on the application of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to abusive exclusionary conduct by dominant undertakings (Draft 102 Guidelines).

Response to Savings and Investments Union

7 Mar 2025

The Letta, Noyer and Draghi reports make identical observations: A loss of competitiveness for the European Union, particularly vis-à-vis the United States including on capital markets. Colossal financing needs (innovation, double transition, strengthening the Union's defence capabilities). Abundant savings that are not optimally allocated. With a view to operational implementation over 18 months, it is important to focus on the key measures that can be implemented quickly: Reviving securitisation Mobilising savings Reforming regulation and supervision Simplifying sustainable finance In order to make progress on these issues, political pressure is needed at the highest level. For further details, please refer to the attached AFEP's roadmap.
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Meeting with Gabriele Bischoff (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur) and Mouvement des Entreprises de France and Bundesverband deutscher Wohnungs- und Immobilienunternehmen

6 Mar 2025 · Austausch

Meeting with Cristina Dias (Cabinet of Commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque), Elena Arveras (Cabinet of Commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque), Larisa Dragomir (Cabinet of Commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque) and

6 Feb 2025 · Introductory meeting to present the organisations and their work

Meeting with Marcel Haag (Director Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union) and Deutsches Aktieninstitut and

6 Feb 2025 · Omnibus Proposal

Meeting with Arthur Corbin (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné)

6 Feb 2025 · Simplification and Clean Industrial Deal

Meeting with Valérie Hayer (Member of the European Parliament) and Fédération bancaire française and

5 Feb 2025 · Simplification

Meeting with Gilles Boyer (Member of the European Parliament) and Fédération bancaire française and

5 Feb 2025 · Omnibus simplification

Response to Single Market Strategy 2025

31 Jan 2025

Please find attached AFEP's contribution to this call for evidence. Since 1982, AFEP brings together large companies operating in France. The Association, based in Paris and Brussels, aims to foster a business-friendly environment and to present the company members vision to French public authorities, European institutions and international organisations. Restoring business competitiveness to achieve growth and sustainable employment in Europe and tackle the challenges of globalisation is AFEPs core priority. AFEP has 118 members and represents one-third of Europes 60 largest companies.
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Meeting with Martin Merlin (Director Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union)

20 Jan 2025 · Priorités du début de mandat et positions suite aux récentes consultations de la Commission européenne sur la qualité du reporting et la titrisation.

Meeting with Andrea Beltramello (Head of Unit Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union)

15 Jan 2025 · Capital Markets Union (CMU) and the Savings and Investments Union (SIU)

Meeting with Aurore Lalucq (Member of the European Parliament)

9 Jan 2025 · Union des marchés de capitaux, financement de la double transition numérique et écologique

Meeting with Stéphane Séjourné (Executive Vice-President) and

13 Dec 2024 · Simplification & SMEs

Meeting with Stéphanie Yon-Courtin (Member of the European Parliament)

12 Dec 2024 · Savings and Investments Union

Meeting with Arthur Corbin (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné)

12 Dec 2024 · Simplification package - Omnibus

Meeting with Christophe Grudler (Member of the European Parliament)

12 Dec 2024 · Compétitivité européenne

Meeting with Valérie Hayer (Member of the European Parliament)

9 Dec 2024 · Compétitivité européenne

Meeting with Andrea Wechsler (Member of the European Parliament)

9 Dec 2024 · EU Energy and industry policy

Meeting with Gilles Boyer (Member of the European Parliament)

23 Oct 2024 · CMU + Sustainable Finance

Meeting with Christophe Grudler (Member of the European Parliament)

25 Sept 2024 · Echange autour des priorités européennes de l'AFEP

Meeting with Laurent Castillo (Member of the European Parliament)

25 Sept 2024 · Compétitivité, santé, environnement, transports

Response to Rules specifying the obligations laid down in Articles 21(5) and 23(11) of the NIS 2 Directive

25 Jul 2024

Madam, Sir, Please find attached the position paper of our association on the drafts submitted for public consultation by the Commission. We remain at your disposal for any clarification that you may need. Kind regards, Jocelyn Goubet
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Meeting with Kerstin Jorna (Director-General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs)

24 Jun 2024 · Priorities and challenges of Large Companies in France

Meeting with Svenja Hahn (Member of the European Parliament) and BUSINESSEUROPE and

21 Feb 2024 · Stakeholder Roundtable on Late Payment Regulation

French Large Companies Urge Risk-Based GDPR Approach

8 Feb 2024
Topic — The European Commission is reviewing the application of the GDPR regulation.
Message — AFEP demands that data authorities return to a risk-based approach and avoid rigid interpretations. They seek better dialogue and clearer rules for identifying individuals during access requests. The group calls for proportionate interpretations that support business innovation.12
Why — This would lower compliance costs and help firms innovate with artificial intelligence.3
Impact — Specialized law firms and privacy activists would lose the ability to pursue lawsuits.4
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Meeting with Stéphanie Yon-Courtin (Member of the European Parliament) and French Publishers Association (Syndicat National de l'Edition)

1 Feb 2024 · Late Payments

Meeting with Laurence Sailliet (Member of the European Parliament)

25 Jan 2024 · Green claims

Meeting with Geoffroy Didier (Member of the European Parliament)

22 Jan 2024 · Directive européenne sur les délais de paiement et justification et communication relatives aux allégations environnementales explicites

Meeting with Geoffroy Didier (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

10 Jan 2024 · Compulsory licensing

Meeting with Nils Torvalds (Member of the European Parliament)

9 Jan 2024 · Green Claims Directive

Meeting with Cyrus Engerer (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)

8 Jan 2024 · Green Claims Directive

Meeting with Christophe Grudler (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur) and France Industrie

7 Dec 2023 · Règlement pour une industrie à zéro émission

Meeting with Fabienne Keller (Member of the European Parliament)

7 Dec 2023 · Impact de la proposition de règlement sur les pratiques administratives françaises

Meeting with Laurence Sailliet (Member of the European Parliament)

6 Dec 2023 · Echanges avec l'AFEP - Règlement sur les retards de paiement

Meeting with Stéphanie Yon-Courtin (Member of the European Parliament) and Confédération des Petites et Moyennes Entreprises

5 Dec 2023 · Late Payments

Meeting with Nathalie Colin-Oesterlé (Member of the European Parliament)

5 Dec 2023 · Proposition de règlement du Parlement européen et du Conseil établissant des règles de procédure supplémentaires relatives à l’application du règlement (UE) 2016/679

Meeting with Gilles Boyer (Member of the European Parliament)

27 Nov 2023 · ESG ratings

Meeting with Gilles Boyer (Member of the European Parliament)

19 Oct 2023 · ESG ratings

Meeting with Pernille Weiss-Ehler (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur) and Landbrug Fødevarer - Danish Agriculture and Food Council

13 Oct 2023 · Directive on substantiation and communication of explicit environmental claims (Green Claims Directive)

Meeting with Gilles Boyer (Member of the European Parliament)

9 Oct 2023 · ESG ratings

AFEP urges sub-installation focus for EU climate-neutrality plans

1 Sept 2023
Topic — This consultation defines requirements for climate-neutrality plans within the revised Emissions Trading System.
Message — AFEP requests applying climate plans and penalties only to underperforming sub-installations. They also seek updated benchmark years and protections for commercially sensitive data.12
Why — This would protect efficient business segments from penalties aimed at poorly performing units.3
Impact — Public transparency groups lose access to key data concerning the climate impact of large industries.4
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Meeting with Antoine Colombani (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans)

11 Jul 2023 · European Sustainability Reporting Standards; Corporate Sustainability due diligence Directive

Response to European Sustainability Reporting Standards

7 Jul 2023

AFEP, ACTEO and MEDEF would like to make the following comments (refer also to our detailed comments attached): Companies welcome the greater emphasis placed on materiality. They also welcome the more gradual implementation of reporting obligations. The transformation of certain problematic data into voluntary information is positive. On the other hand, information that is either prejudicial (e.g. confirmed incidents of corruption) or problematic (e.g. indicators on non-employees; information on adequate salaries) remains so and should therefore be removed. The generalization of the materiality principle for all thematic standards and disclosure requirements creates a problematic situation for Financial Market Participants (FMPs), as it introduces a misalignment between the reporting obligations of financial and non-financial undertakings. There is currently no materiality assessment allowed under other EU regulations, applicable to financial institutions (Pillar 3 ESG as defined by Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 and SFDR) and FMPs are required to collect ESG information on all their counterparties and investee companies. FMPs consider that the data needed to fulfil those mandatory reporting obligations should remain mandatory in the ESRS. Companies urge the European Commission to pursue its work toward rationalisation, to ensure usability of the entire sustainable finance framework and consistency between the different pieces of legislation. The definition of financial materiality for ESRSs must be identical to that adopted by IFRS S1. The social standard S1 remains very heavy and burdensome. Companies appreciate that a number of DRs relate only to employees now and the introduction of the 10% threshold in the disaggregation data and phase-in measures. Nevertheless, further simplifications or deletions are needed. For instance, the DR including non-employees could be removed and the adequate wage indicator could be postponed to a later stage. As already explained, with regard to indicators relating to social policies, the problems of definitions remain at European / international level (social dialogue and collective bargaining; adequate wage; health and safety, persons with disabilities): this will lead to problems of data reliability and a lack of interest in comparability. Regarding S2, S3 and S4, companies still consider that those standards are not fully relevant. Guidance is highly necessary on the materiality analysis and value chain boundaries. Companies welcome the Commission decision to focus EFRAGs work on these crucial aspects. For environmental standards: o ESRS requirements are not entitled to define the methodologies to be used to assess the information reported by the undertakings. Specifically, the ESRS-E1 (on climate change) should remain neutral regarding the different methodologies currently available to assess the 1.5°C compatibility of companies and should neither compel nor even recommend the use of one specific approach developed by one specific actor. o The definition of climate change mitigation, which is linked to numerous disclosure requirements in ESRS E1 should not amount to impose requirements that go beyond the CSRD. In this regard, all paragraphs and application requirements in ESRS E1 about companies climate transition plans must systematically and strictly refer to the compatibility of their business model and strategy in view of the transition to a sustainable economy and the limiting of global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels in line with the Paris Agreement, with no wording change. o In ESRS E2 related to pollution, it is essential to state more explicitly that local pollutants should not be aggregated as a whole because the level of risk is assessed at installation level and not at group level. The publication of consolidated data for local pollutants is meaningless under a risk perspective.
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Meeting with Florian Denis (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness), Katherine Power (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness)

4 Jul 2023 · Sustainable Finance

Meeting with Andrea Beltramello (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis)

4 Jul 2023 · Sustainable Finance

Response to Initiative on EU taxonomy - environmental objective

3 May 2023

AFEP, the French Association of Large Companies, brings together 117 large companies, both non-financial and financial undertakings operating in the EU and worldwide. AFEP member companies welcome the opportunity to comment on the Taxonomy draft Delegated Acts and wish to insist on the following cross-sectoral key issues: 1. Regarding the dates of implementation of the disclosures related to the new activities and environmental objectives (Article 5 amending Article 10 of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2178), companies consider that they should not apply to the 2023 reporting year. The draft Delegated Acts will be adopted, at best, by fall 2023. Companies need time to put in place the procedures to collect data. The Commission should also take into account the challenge that the implementation of the ESRS will represent for companies. AFEP member companies consider that only the publication of alignment in 2025 should be required (for the 2024 reporting year) for new activities and environmental objectives, notwithstanding the possibility for non-financial companies to publish eligibility on a voluntary basis in 2024 (for the 2023 reporting year). Financial undertakings would benefit from an additional year. 2. Regarding the OpEx KPI defined in Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation, companies consider that publication of this KPI should not be mandatory. Despite the Commissions FAQs, there are still many issues regarding the definition and calculation of this KPI. The collection of necessary data, in particular, is very burdensome. Furthermore, this KPI is not relevant for many activities and investors are more interested in the CapEx KPI. Therefore, pending the review of the Taxonomy Regulation, AFEP member companies consider that Annex I of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2178 should be amended to allow companies to omit the OpEx KPI when such indicator is not material or relevant. 3. Regarding Appendix C which defines generic criteria for DNSH to the objective of pollution prevention and control regarding use and presence of chemicals, companies acknowledge the changes put forward to address legal issues related to the concept of use essential for the society. These changes however do not solve the issue and raise new ones (e.g.: how should the assessment that there is no other suitable substance be documented, the definition of controlled conditions). Companies are concerned that these changes if implemented will produce the same results as the current wording: exclude many activities. Therefore, companies consider that the best way forward would be, as a first step, to simply require, in indent (f) of Appendix C, compliance with existing EU legislations without additional requirements and remove the requirement laid down in indent (g). The Commission could then reflect in cooperation with the industry on how the assessment of alternative substances and technologies should be documented and on the definition of controlled conditions before introducing new requirements. For the first two points mentioned above, amendment proposals are included in the document attached along with detailed comments on specific sectoral issues regarding both draft delegated acts and their annexes.
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Response to Initiative on EU taxonomy - environmental objective

3 May 2023

AFEP, the French Association of Large Companies, brings together 117 large companies, both non-financial and financial undertakings operating in the EU and worldwide. AFEP member companies welcome the opportunity to comment on the Taxonomy draft Delegated Acts and wish to insist on the following cross-sectoral key issues: 1. Regarding the dates of implementation of the disclosures related to the new activities and environmental objectives (Article 5 amending Article 10 of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2178), companies consider that they should not apply to the 2023 reporting year. The draft Delegated Acts will be adopted, at best, by fall 2023. Companies need time to put in place the procedures to collect data. The Commission should also take into account the challenge that the implementation of the ESRS will represent for companies. AFEP member companies consider that only the publication of alignment in 2025 should be required (for the 2024 reporting year) for new activities and environmental objectives, notwithstanding the possibility for non-financial companies to publish eligibility on a voluntary basis in 2024 (for the 2023 reporting year). Financial undertakings would benefit from an additional year. 2. Regarding the OpEx KPI defined in Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation, companies consider that publication of this KPI should not be mandatory. Despite the Commissions FAQs, there are still many issues regarding the definition and calculation of this KPI. The collection of necessary data, in particular, is very burdensome. Furthermore, this KPI is not relevant for many activities and investors are more interested in the CapEx KPI. Therefore, pending the review of the Taxonomy Regulation, AFEP member companies consider that Annex I of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2178 should be amended to allow companies to omit the OpEx KPI when such indicator is not material or relevant. 3. Regarding Appendix C which defines generic criteria for DNSH to the objective of pollution prevention and control regarding use and presence of chemicals, companies acknowledge the changes put forward to address legal issues related to the concept of use essential for the society. These changes however do not solve the issue and raise new ones (e.g.: how should the assessment that there is no other suitable substance be documented, the definition of controlled conditions). Companies are concerned that these changes if implemented will produce the same results as the current wording: exclude many activities. Therefore, companies consider that the best way forward would be, as a first step, to simply require, in indent (f) of Appendix C, compliance with existing EU legislations without additional requirements and remove the requirement laid down in indent (g). The Commission could then reflect in cooperation with the industry on how the assessment of alternative substances and technologies should be documented and on the definition of controlled conditions before introducing new requirements. For the first two points mentioned above, amendment proposals are included in the document attached along with detailed comments on specific sectoral issues regarding both draft delegated acts and their annexes.
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Meeting with Krzysztof Hetman (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

3 May 2023 · Exchange of views on Forced Labour Regulation (meeting delegated to parliamentary assistant)

Meeting with Maria-Manuel Leitão-Marques (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur) and Mouvement des Entreprises de France and Nike, Inc.

13 Apr 2023 · Forced Labour ban

Meeting with Raphaël Glucksmann (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur) and Mouvement des Entreprises de France

13 Apr 2023 · APA - Forced labour

French companies call for streamlined cross-border GDPR enforcement

24 Mar 2023
Topic — The consultation aims to harmonize procedural rules for national data protection authorities.
Message — Afep requests a mutual recognition system for national guidelines and a single notification process for security breaches. They also propose a digital portal for companies to monitor investigation progress in real-time.123
Why — Harmonization would reduce the high administrative costs of managing multiple conflicting national regulations.4
Impact — National regulators would lose the autonomy to issue independent guidance tailored to local laws.5
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Large French firms urge EU to reform payment calculations

17 Mar 2023
Topic — The European Commission is reviewing rules to combat late payments in commercial transactions.
Message — AFEP recommends calculating payment deadlines from invoice receipt rather than the issuance date. They also support creating national enforcement authorities and a European Observatory of Payments.12
Why — This shift would protect large companies from penalties for administrative delays in mailing.3
Impact — Small suppliers could face longer payment cycles if the legal countdown starts later.4
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Meeting with Eva-Maria Alexandrova Poptcheva (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur) and Association Française des Marchés Financiers

10 Mar 2023 · Listing Act

Meeting with Florian Denis (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness), Katherine Power (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness) and Deutsches Aktieninstitut

9 Mar 2023 · Sustainable Finance

AFEP urges Commission to cut red tape in subsidy reviews

6 Mar 2023
Topic — Rules for notifying foreign subsidies in company mergers and public procurement bids.
Message — AFEP calls for a drastic reduction in the volume of data companies must provide. They propose a step-by-step approach focusing only on financial contributions likely to distort the market.12
Why — These changes would lower compliance costs and protect companies' sensitive industrial strategies from disclosure.34
Impact — Regulators might lack the comprehensive data needed to identify and block subtle foreign market distortions.5
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Meeting with Olivier Guersent (Director-General Competition)

15 Feb 2023 · IRA, HBER, revision market definition notice, Temporary Crisis Framework

Meeting with Pascal Canfin (Member of the European Parliament) and Världsnaturfonden WWF (WWF Sweden) and Fundacja WWF Polska

8 Feb 2023 · Green Deal

Meeting with Gilles Boyer (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

29 Nov 2022 · CRR3 (staff)

Response to European Critical Raw Materials Act

25 Nov 2022

AFEP, the association of large French companies would like first to thank the European Commission for giving the opportunity to submit comments at the occasion of the public consultation for the impact assessment of a legislative proposal regarding the adoption of a Critical Raw Material Act. Large French companies clearly welcome the preparation of such initiative, announced in May 2022 in the initial presentation of Repower EU and confirmed by the president of the European Commission in her speech on the State of the European Union on 14 September. In complement to its individual replies to the public consultations online set of questions, AFEP shares the following comments regarding different aspects of the intended legislative proposal and accompanying measures ( see attached document).
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Meeting with Gilles Boyer (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

26 Oct 2022 · CRR3, EUGB (staff)

Meeting with Peter Liese (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur) and European Environmental Bureau and

14 Oct 2022 · ETS

Meeting with Ibán García Del Blanco (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)

11 Oct 2022 · Exchange of views on the Data Act

Meeting with Alin Mituța (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur) and Robert Bosch GmbH and

11 Oct 2022 · Data Act

Meeting with Pascal Durand (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur for opinion)

28 Sept 2022 · European Single Access Point (ESAP) (APA only)

Meeting with Antoine Colombani (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans)

22 Sept 2022 · Energy prices; Fit for 55; sustainable finance

Meeting with Christophe Grudler (Member of the European Parliament)

21 Sept 2022 · Marché européen des données

Meeting with Peter Liese (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)

5 Sept 2022 · ETS and CBAM

Meeting with Pascal Durand (Member of the European Parliament)

13 Jul 2022 · due diligence + ESAP (APA only)

Meeting with Gilles Boyer (Member of the European Parliament)

12 Jul 2022 · Actualité ECON-FISC

Meeting with Gilles Boyer (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

21 Jun 2022 · EUGB (staff), CSRD (staff)

Meeting with Peter Liese (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur) and BUSINESSEUROPE and

23 May 2022 · ETS

Afep urges EU to avoid new patent licensing legislation

29 Apr 2022
Topic — Harmonizing EU rules for compulsory patent licensing during cross-border crises.
Message — Afep recommends maintaining the existing legal framework and avoiding additional legislative measures. They support creating an EU coordination mechanism based on sharing best practices between member states.123
Why — This ensures large companies maintain exclusive rights to exploit their patents during crises.4
Impact — EU authorities may lack efficient tools to address future cross-border health emergencies.5
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Meeting with Olivier Guersent (Director-General Competition)

28 Apr 2022 · politique des aides d’état, HBER, VBER, article 22

Response to Instrument to deter and counteract coercive actions by third countries

31 Mar 2022

AFEP (French association of large companies) thanks the European Commission for giving the opportunity to share public comments on the proposed regulation on the protection of the EU and Member States against economic coercion by third countries. AFEP comments are outlined in the attached position paper.
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Response to EU single access point for financial and non-financial information publicly disclosed by companies

29 Mar 2022

AFEP brings together over 110 large companies operating in France and worldwide which are in majority public interest entities and therefore subject to the disclosure requirements of several pieces of EU legislation listed in the Annex of the ESAP Regulation and in particular the Transparency Directive, the Accounting Directive – including the Non-financial Directive as well as the forthcoming Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive –, the Prospectus Regulation and the Market Abuse Regulation not to mention sectoral legislations. AFEP member companies will be major contributors in feeding the ESAP. The ESAP Regulation can therefore have significant structural effects on AFEP member companies. In this regard, AFEP wishes to insist on the fact that the establishment of the ESAP should not generate additional costs and liability for companies. This is a critical point since large public companies will not necessarily in the short-term draw significant benefits from the ESAP: only in the long run, easier access to financial and non-financial information may have beneficial impacts for instance on the costs of financing. ESAP will, in the short term, mainly benefit financial market participants that need to collect data to comply with their own reporting requirements and data vendors. Additional costs, in particular, can stem from the following elements: - Changes to the current dissemination and storage rules in force in each Member State: changes to current existing rules will generate costs for reporting companies but also for the NCA and the OAM without proven benefits. AFEP member companies consider therefore that the ESAP proposal, and more precisely the proposals for a regulation and a directive amending certain existing regulations and directives as regards the establishment of the ESAP, should allow flexibility to Member States to appoint the collection body. - Too short implementation deadlines: in particular whenever ESMA is empowered with the task to develop implementing technical standards regarding the metadata to be included, the structuring of the data and the use of machine-readable formats, a minimum period of 12 months before the application of the new requirements should be explicitly included in the technical standards. - Disproportionate technical requirements: before defining technical standards and mandating a specific format a robust cost-benefit analysis should be carried out to strike the right balance between, on the one hand, the need to have comparable and interactive data and, on the other hand, the constraints and costs for “preparers”. These key points are detailed in our position paper attached. In addition, AFEP member companies also wish to comment on the scope of the ESAP proposal which should exclude: disclosures of significant net short positions required under the Short-selling Regulation (Regulation (EU) 236/2012) ; KIDs/KIIDs to be published under the PRIIPs Regulation and UCITS Directive ; reports on the quality of the execution of client orders and on the top five execution venues published pursuant to MIFID/MIFIR and the associated technical standards.
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Meeting with Gilles Boyer (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur) and European Banking Federation

9 Mar 2022 · EUGB (staff)

Response to Fight against counterfeiting

3 Mar 2022

Please find attached AFEP (French Association of Large Companies)'s contribution to this consultation.
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Response to EU Competition law – revision of the market definition notice

16 Feb 2022

AFEP (the French Association of Large Companies) thanks the European Commission for continuing its discussions with stakeholders in order to update this Notice. You will find our detailed contribution attached.
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Meeting with Thierry Breton (Commissioner)

28 Oct 2021 · Industrial strategy update

Response to New EU system for the avoidance of double taxation in the field of withholding taxes

26 Oct 2021

The French Association of Large Companies (AFEP) welcomes the opportunity to answer this consultation on the Commission's roadmap. This initiative is particularly welcomed by French large companies in a context where Member States are multiplying domestic measures to restrain access to these benefits by introducing very heavy administrative processes. While the fight against tax fraud is a priority supported by French large companies, this should not lead to the introduction of domestic measures denying companies the advantages granted by EU and international law or to substitute them to tax administrations through a priori systematic self-control mechanisms. It is essential to implement solutions in order to overcome these obstacles to the EU market development and its attractivity. Please find AFEP's detailed position attached.
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Meeting with Joan Canton (Cabinet of Commissioner Thierry Breton)

20 Oct 2021 · Réunion préparatoire pour diner avec les Présidents membres de l’Afep le 28/10

Meeting with Kerstin Jorna (Director-General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs)

18 Oct 2021 · Discuss specific issues of the Industrial Strategy, such as the reform of competition policy and the level playing field at global level.

Meeting with Pascal Canfin (Member of the European Parliament)

13 Oct 2021 · Fit for 55

Meeting with Andrea Beltramello (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis) and Deutsches Aktieninstitut and

12 Oct 2021 · Sustainable Corporate Governance Initiative

Meeting with Agnieszka Drzewoska (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness) and Wirtschaftskammer Österreich and Deutsches Aktieninstitut

28 Sept 2021 · Investment protection and facilitation.

Meeting with Andrea Beltramello (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis) and Wirtschaftskammer Österreich and Deutsches Aktieninstitut

28 Sept 2021 · Investment protection and facilitation

Response to Addressing distortions caused by foreign subsidies

22 Jul 2021

AFEP, the French association of large companies, welcomes the adoption of the proposal for a regulation on foreign subsidies distorting the internal market. With a view to contributing to the early stage of the legislative process, AFEP shares a set of preliminary comments on the proposed regulation in the position paper in attachment.
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Response to Revision of Non-Financial Reporting Directive

13 Jul 2021

AFEP (the French Association of Large Companies) considers that the revision of the current Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) is necessary in order to harmonise and standardise sustainability reporting and to end the proliferation of frameworks and standards. The “Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive” (CSRD) proposal introduces a new set of ambitious requirements that are, for some of them, already applicable in France, where the scope of companies covered is larger than in NFRD, the non-financial statement is already published in the management report and verified by an independent third party. However, the text significantly impacts AFEP member companies as it introduces new reporting themes (such as transition plans, targets, governance of sustainability, intangibles) as well as new indicators, modifies the functioning of the Board and provides for the publication of sustainability reports in a digital format. AFEP member companies consider that the future Directive should: - cover all non-European companies offering goods and services in the EU above a certain threshold of turnover, and not only non-EU companies listed in the EU or large non-EU subsidiaries based in the EU; - leave companies free to set appropriate targets according to their sector and activity, and not systematically require them to publish forward-looking information; - limit the information requirement on intangibles (human, social, intellectual capitals…) to qualitative information rather than quantitative information; - not anticipate the content of the future proposal for a European due diligence which is to be specified in a dedicated future text; - ensure the compatibility of the future EU reporting standard with international requirements and its coherence with the existing European legislation on sustainable finance; - clarify the requirements on digitalisation, it being specified that only quantitative information can be "tagged" like the IFRS consolidated financial statements; - not extend the missions of the audit committee to extra-financial reporting.
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Response to Debt equity bias reduction allowance (DEBRA)

8 Jul 2021

Afep, the French Association of Large Companies, represents the interest of over 110 of the largest corporations operating in France. Afep members welcome the opportunity to provide feedback on the inception impact assessment regarding a potential legislative proposal from the Commission to address the debt-equity bias. Afep member companies support the objectives of the Capital Market Union and the development of measures aimed at fostering the recapitalisation of corporations in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic. In this regard French companies would welcome the creation of an allowance for equity by enabling the tax deductibility of a notional interest for equity. On the contrary, Afep member companies do not support measures that would result in either disallowing or penalising the deductibility of interest payments. Our members would like to insist on the fact that equity and debt are two complementary means of financing and should not be opposed. Furthermore, the determination and implementation of financing strategies is not only based on tax considerations. Afep member companies mainly use debt to finance their activities and are frequent issuers of debt securities: according to the French Central Bank, large non-financial undertakings have a higher proportion of market debt versus bank loans compared to the average for EU corporations. Afep member companies issue debt securities for many reasons not related to the tax treatment of interests – without mentioning the current low interest environment – identified in the report published by the Expert Group on Corporate Bonds established in 2017 by the European Commission: − Flexibility: the fact that the terms of issuance can be customized to the company's needs is one of the most important reasons for corporate issuers to choose corporate bonds as a source of funding. − Agility: bond markets allow taking full advantage of favourable market conditions. − Longer tenors: bond markets provide access to longer maturities. − Diversification: bond markets reduce dependence to bank lending and provide access to a new investor base. − Pricing: depending on market conditions, pricing on corporate bond markets can be very attractive. The flexibility of debt securities also allows for more innovation. In the context of the EU Action Plan for Sustainable Finance, « sustainable » financing instruments such as sustainability-linked bonds or social bonds have for instance rapidly developped. Compared to debt securities, the issuance of equity securities for listed companies offers less flexibility for reasons pertaining both to EU and domestic legal constraints: requirement to publish a more detailed prospectus, longer period of subscription and therefore higher exposure to market risks for rights issues, constraints on the determination of the subscription price for issuance without pre-emptive rights…The legislative proposal envisaged by the Commission should therefore focus on offering a more favourable tax treatment to equity but could also look at alleviating, where possible, existing constraints on equity issuance (the Recovery Prospectus for instance could be made permanent and offer more alleviations). Finally, Afep member companies consider that when analysing the financial condition and credit risk of companies, the outstanding amount of debt cannot be assessed alone without taking into consideration the strategy of the said companies and their net indebtedness.
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Meeting with Antoine Colombani (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans)

8 Jun 2021 · Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, Sustainable Corporate Governance, Taxonomy

Response to Commission Delegated Regulation on taxonomy-alignment of undertakings reporting non-financial information

2 Jun 2021

Afep welcomes the opportunity to comment on the draft delegated regulation to be adopted under Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation (TR). Our members support the objectives of the Sustainable Finance Action Plan but consider that the framework being established is extremely complex and that the new disclosure requirements need clarification on several points. Without full clarity about the definitions, scope and methodology, companies will not be able to implement properly the draft delegated act. Allowing some flexibility is also essential in order to avoid disproportionate burden and costs for preparers and provide meaningful information to stakeholders. In this regard, Afep member companies welcome the transitional year put forward by the Commission, but consider that: − the publication of the KPIs should be postponed until 2024 considering the complexity and the need for clarification mentioned above, and in order to ensure consistency with the future non-financial reporting standards to be established by the EFRAG ; a longer transitional period would allow time for companies to test and learn and for more guidance to be developped; − therefore in 2022 and 2023, non-financial undertakings should only be required to publish the share of their revenue associated with Taxonomy-eligible economic activities; − financial undertakings should be required to publish their green asset ratio only from 2025; − the disclosure requirements should be restricted to Taxonomy-aligned activities in accordance with Article 8 of the TR ; non-eligible and non-aligned activities shall not be reported and companies whose activities are not yet covered by the Taxonomy shall not have to disclose any information ; a clear statement from policy makers on this point would be welcome; − as regards the publication of objective and targets, this requirement is contrary to the TR which does not mandate any forward-looking disclosure and would potentially raise confidentiality and liability issues; − requiring companies to publish the KPIs for the previous 5 years would constitute an excessive requirement that shall not be enacted; − the turnover generated through joint ventures and CapEx included in joint ventures, which can be significant for certain companies, should be taken into account to determine the revenue and Capex KPIs to allow stakeholders to assess the real contribution of the concerned activities to the environmental objectives of the TR; − as regards the OpEx KPI, which is not mentioned in annexes III, IV, V, VI, VII VIII, IX and X of the draft delegated act, flexibility should be given to non-financial undertakings to select, within the definition laid down in the draft delegated act, expenditures that are material to their activities or to assess their strategies regarding the environmental objectives; − for both CapEx and OpEx KPIs, when there are no capital or operational expenditures meeting the criteria to be included in the numerator, a negative statement should suffice to comply with the disclosure requirements; − companies should not have to include in the numerator the purchase of output from Taxonomy-aligned economic activities ; this should be an option; − the review clause should expressly include an assessment of the relevance of the KPIs, of their methodology and of the templates used for their publication. Finally, we consider that the draft delegated act should be improved on several points in particular to clarify how activities contributing to several objectives shall be reported, to avoid introducing new or undefined terms and to strike the right balance regarding the level of granularity required in the accompanying information (please refer to our detailed position paper including drafting suggestions). We would also welcome the publication of a glossary of all the terms used in the regulations adopted under the Sustainable Finance Action Plan.
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Meeting with Andrea Beltramello (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis) and Deutsches Aktieninstitut and

7 May 2021 · Sustainable corporate governance

Meeting with Florian Denis (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness) and Deutsches Aktieninstitut and

7 May 2021 · sustainable corporate governance

Meeting with Andrea Beltramello (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis), Gints Freimanis (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis)

29 Apr 2021 · Carbon border adjustment mechanism, sustainable corporate governance and due diligence, sustainable finance

Meeting with Florian Denis (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness)

25 Mar 2021 · country by country reporting and non-financial reporting

Response to Instrument to deter and counteract coercive actions by third countries

17 Mar 2021

AFEP, the association of large French companies, welcomes the preparation of a legislative initiative for the adoption of an anti-coercion instrument. The legislative procedure for the adoption of the revised Enforcement Regulation brought forward the need to design an instrument to rapidly react to unilateral and disproportionate trade restrictive measures by third countries outside the framework of WTO or FTA DSM. AFEP has the following comments with regard to several aspects of the intended legislative initiative : 1) Coordination with the impact assessment on the update of the blocking Regulation and other initiatives AFEP welcomes the possible inclusion of extraterritorial measures including sanctions among the "triggers" of the anti-coercion instrument (see below) as well as the preparation of a parallel legislative initiative for the update of the Blocking regulation notably to explore the possibility of non-trade retorsion measures. Both impact assessments should be conducted hand in hand and the European Commission should seek an optimum coordination between the two initiatives. The same consistency effort should apply to the entire spectrum of policy initiatives on improving EU resilience such as the set-up of an EU resilience taskforce. 2) Scope of coercive measures Criteria for determining the "triggers" should be flexible enough to capture the variety of economic coercive behaviours by trading partners, even if they do not consist in a breach of WTO or bilateral commitments. Likewise, the determination whether a behaviour is coercive should not only focus on the targeted effect on EU/its member States but also the direct impact on EU companies and fair competition. In addition to measures violating EU sovereignty (f.i, extraterritorial effects of sanctions, export control, investment screening measures), the triggers should then be extended to trade and investment restrictive measures, action or behaviours such as threats, intended delays, excessive border control, legal constraints exerciced by judicial or prosecuting authorities for the access of sensitive business data. 3) Procedures Investigations before reaching a determination/adopting responses should be framed in time to allow for rapid actions and strengthen the deterrent effect of the instrument. Based on damages endured by EU companies, investigations should be initiated both ex officio and upon request of impacted businesses. If an EU interest test is required to justify actions under the instrument, the assessment should likewise include the level of economic damages due to coercive measures as well as the likely impact of EU countermeasures. As a result, the instrument should come along with a monitoring system to quantify losses and inherent risks at stake and a thorough stakeholder consultation. 4) EU responses The deterrent effect will much rely on the credibility and scale of EU responses. Hence, the instrument should provide for a large scope of restrictive measures going beyond trade in goods to include trade in service, investment, IPR and government procurement. The impact assessment should also analyse the different options for determining the level of EU measures as well as their purpose, in coordination with the impact assessment for the revision of the blocking Regulation. One of the weakest point of the Blocking regulation being the lack of effectiveness of proceedings for the compensation of damages due to extraterritorial measures, it is worth considering whether the quantum of EU measures adopted under the anti-coercion instrument could be calculated by reference to the economic damages endured by EU companies and if EU tariff measures could finance a compensation fund for the EU businesses. In addition, EU should minimise the risk of countermeasures by avoiding responses against a country on sectors for which there is a trade surplus. AFEP detailed comments are outlined in the position paper attached to this submission.
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Response to Climate change mitigation and adaptation taxonomy

18 Dec 2020

Afep, the French Association of Large Companies, welcomes the opportunity to comment on the draft delegated regulation establishing the technical screening criteria under the Taxonomy Regulation (“the Regulation”). We insist again on the challenge all stakeholders are faced with and which is to bring about a greener economy. This objective can only be achieved through a stepwise and inclusive process. In this regard and considering the comments detailed in our accompanying document, we consider that the draft delegated regulation should not be adopted as it stands and should be adapted to include the points we are raising. Afep member companies consider that : − A more robust impact assessment is necessary considering potential costs linked to the implementation of the Regulation. Depending on the activities and the technical screening criteria the assessment of compliance will only be meaningful if done at a very detailed level and could be very burdensome and costly to perform. − Some technical screening criteria are too stringent and will cover only a very limited part of activities that could be considered to contribute substantially to the objectives of the Regulation. In particular some criteria put forward by the TEG were hardened in the draft delegated act (e.g. : for hydrogen manufacturing). Compliance with the taxonomy appears very challenging if not impossible ; this in turn will limit the impact of the taxonomy on the transition towards a sustainable economy. − The criteria exclude some technologies that are mature and could deliver a significant reduction of GHG emissions, such as carbon capture utilisation. Whilst article 19.1. (a) of the Regulation sets forth the principle of technological neutrality, this has not been the case either in the TEG report nor in the draft delegated regulation. − A clarification of the distinction between transitional/enabling and other activities is needed as some economic activities do not seem to have been classified in the appropriate category. The classification as enabling activity should not prevent related R&D activities from being considered as sustainable under the taxonomy. − The criteria should respect relevant EU acquis, which was developed according to well-established and transparent legislative processes, including in-depth impact assessments and stakeholders’ consultations. − Life-cycle analysis is not adequately incorporated in the criteria, in particular when using ETS benchmarks. − Distribution and maintenance services associated with sustainable technologies are not sufficiently taken into account. − Key enabling technologies are only listed for use and operations but have not been included in manufacturing. Section 3.5 allows to include activities not yet covered but which result in substantial GHG emission reductions. However, this provision is very difficult to implement, as the burden of proof relies on the manufacturer. The most problematic aspect is the first criterion and the Commission needs to clarify what the « best alternative solutions available on the market » are. − Clarification regarding annexe E of the draft delegated regulation would be welcome (Generic criteria for DNSH to climate change adaptation). We would like to stress the fact that Afep member companies are in favour of the establishment of an inclusive taxonomy that will support the transition to a sustainable economy. In order to achieve this objective, we recommend adapting the draft delegated regulation taking into account our comments. Finally, the taxonomy – which is not mature enough and still incomplete – should not yet be used in other EU legislations, especially for the use of EU funds. Companies are indeed concerned about spill-over effects on other pieces of legislation that could have detrimental impacts on their operations and funding.
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Meeting with Andrea Beltramello (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis) and Deutsches Aktieninstitut and

18 Dec 2020 · Sustainable finance

Meeting with Mairead McGuinness (Commissioner)

11 Dec 2020 · Sustainabl Finance, NFRD, Country-by country reporting.

Response to Commission Implementing Decision on standard contractual clauses for the transfer of personal data to third countries

10 Dec 2020

AFEP member companies fully support the ambitions of the European Commission to enforce its personal data protection standards in favour of its European citizens, consumers, or employees. However, this must go hand in hand with smooth flows of data worldwide and no unnecessary and disproportionate companies’ administrative and financial constraints. The update of these standard contractual clauses by the European Commission calls for the following comments from companies: - Positive aspects : • the modular approach proposed by the Commission to cover the complexity of scenarios and contractual relationships (in particular the relationships between subcontractors and tier-2 subcontractors), • the risk-based approach to be carried out by the data exporter and the data importer that ensure full consistency with the overall GDPR requirements, • the role given to the data importer who must, in particular, comply with its contractual commitments under the SCC and ensure that the personal data are adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary to the purpose(s) of processing , • the explicit exclusion of any punitive damage. - Negative aspects : • the analysis of local laws and possible additional measures: a disproportionate and non-GDPR-compliant burden for private actors • the date of entry into force of this decision: to be postponed while avoiding any retroactivity Please find more detailed comments in the paper attached.
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Response to Updating the EU Emissions Trading System

26 Nov 2020

AFEP (French Association of Large Companies) member companies emphasise their support to the target of the Paris Agreement and are committed to make the European Green Deal a success. In the context of the revision of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) Directive, the following enabling factors will be key for companies: - strike the right balance between current and forthcoming GHG emission constraints, and more significant support to further develop low carbon solutions inside the EU - from the R&D phase until their rollout; - define how to trigger the right amount of low carbon investments needed in the EU in close relation with economic decision-makers, taking into account the relevant timing of investment cycles for each sector; - set up an acceptable effort sharing between EU ETS and non-ETS sectors, based on the analysis of international competition, technical feasibility, marginal abatement costs and social acceptance. Indeed, the - 55% target may nearly double the linear reduction factor for ETS. Consequently, special attention should be dedicated to carbon leakage measures and the need to maintain compensation of indirect costs; - define carbon reduction costs pass-through impacts on all value chains throughout relevant economic sectors and the ability to absorb these additional costs by the end-users; - determine the conditions to be met to ensure the consistency and the economic feasibility of the carbon tools (taxes, allowances, regulations, standards) which will be chosen for further implementation; - maintain the existing scope of the EU ETS, while favouring international regulation for the martime sector facing international competition; avoid any inclusion of additional sectors within the EU ETS that would lead to market disruptions and create additional risks for trade-exposed and energy-intensive industries already in the scope of EU ETS. In this regard, the extension of the EU ETS to other EU economic activities, such as transport and buildings, is not an option favoured by AFEP because these sectors have very different levels of GHG abatement costs. This would then result in destabilising the functioning of the scheme for the current ETS sectors. Given this framework, AFEP considers priority should be given to the following opportunities and challenges: - Maintain the EU leadership on climate mobilisation at the global scale, while adressing the risks of competitive distortions and carbon leakage; - Support the preparation of a legislative initiative on a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to incentivise trading partners to adopt carbon pricing mechanisms, provided that this tool is : • combined with other trade measures, • explicitly designed to minimise carbon leakage effects and support EU companies competitiveness (for instance via subsidies), and • WTO compliant, to avoid large scale retaliations from trading partners. In this respect, AFEP will publish soon a study which brings concrete evidence on the added value of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism if it comes with WTO compatible subsidies and is combined with appropriate international trade disciplines to reduce carbon emissions in third countries, foster growth and trade and reduce carbon leakage within the framework of the EU carbon neutrality by 2050. - Address the energy efficiency potential of the building sector (households and tertiary) as an emergency through a dedicated system (possibly a dedicated ETS). Once assessed, the EU should devote significant fraction of its Recovery Plan to tap this potential through comprehensive deep-staged renovations. - Examine the possibilities to create a board of experts gathering all types of stakeholders and possibly regulators, in order to give recommendations to the European Commission and to ensure that technical instruments dedicated to the functioning of the EU ETS are well-calibrated, especially in terms of price signal.
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Meeting with Veronica Gaffey (the Chair of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board Regulatory Scrutiny Board)

26 Nov 2020 · IIA of the Commission on sustainable corporate governance and the consultation on the relevant subject. The Chair of the RSB did not discuss this proposal but provided a general presentation on the work of the Board in the EU regulatory process

Meeting with Olivier Guersent (Director-General Competition)

25 Nov 2020 · General discussion on SA, Digital and Green Deal

Response to Revision of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation

20 Nov 2020

Dans le prolongement de sa consultation de 2019 sur l’opportunité de réviser le VBER, la Commission européenne a indiqué dans la publication de ses résultats en septembre 2020 que ces textes demeuraient utiles mais qu’une mise à jour devait y être apportée. Les entreprises membres de l’Afep remercient la Commission européenne d’avoir : • reconnu la nécessité d’adapter ce texte (et les Lignes Directrices) qui offre une réelle sécurité juridique pour l’ensemble des acteurs économiques, • pris en compte leurs demandes d’adaptation et de clarification de diverses dispositions pour accroître l’efficience du marché unique face aux transformations concurrentielles issues de l’évolution du numérique (vente en ligne/e-commerce), • conforté ainsi, les canaux de distribution sélective qui concernent divers secteurs d’activité. Ces orientations contribueront à soutenir l’économie européenne et à mieux défendre les consommateurs face à des situations de concurrence déloyales ou de contrefaçon dont l’essor doit être freiné vigoureusement. La Commission pourra trouver les commentaires relatifs aux options envisagées dans la pièce-jointe à cette contribution.
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Response to Addressing distortions caused by foreign subsidies

29 Oct 2020

AFEP, the French Association of Large Companies, welcomes the publication of the roadmap for the inception impact assessment for a possible legislative initiative to comprehensively handle foreign subsidies likely to distort general competition as well as competition in tendering procedures on the EU internal market. The inception impact assessment clearly paves the way for legislative development during the year 2021, as referred to in the latest Commission Work programme. Large French companies are supportive of the 3 module-approach suggested by the European Commission in the White paper on Foreign subsidies (global instrument to review and remedy market distortions in general, module 2 focused on subsidies distorting companies acquisitions and module 3 targeting subsidies distorting the competition in procurement tendering procedures) as well as the proposed line on distortive foreign subsidies in the context of EU funding. With regard to legal options laid down in the roadmap, AFEP considers that the internal regulatory approach should be clearly prioritised as the core policy vehicle for building up the three-module scheme, since neither simple interpretation of existing rules for state aid and merger or trade defense nor international trade negotiations on subsidies could deal with the challenges posed by the distortive effects of foreign subsidies within the internal market. That being said, large French companies also support the launch of ambitious trade negotiations on industrial and service subsidies to deal with trade distorsions they may trigger as well as targeted negotiations on trade in government procurement to enable the EU to adopt this new regulatory approach without infringing its international commitments. Regarding the legal architecture of the so-called regulatory approach, AFEP favours the adoption of supplementary instruments for module 1 (subsidiary fair competition tool) and module 2 (merger and acquisition). Even if a single instrument could simplify the review of mergers and acquisition at a first glance, specificities of foreign subsidies and their distortive effects advocate for distinct procedures and therefore for a clear-cut and targeted stand-alone legislation. When it comes to foreign subsidies distorting public procurement tendering procedures and/ EU fund allocation, the very design of subsidy review and of remedial measures opted for will most likely commend an articulation between supplementary legislation and amending EU public procurement directives. The mix suggested by AFEP as an alternative to the module 3 design proposed by the White Paper on foreign subsidies, a general tool based on market review and a decentralised mechanism triggered at the end of tendering procedures (see AFEP comments on the White Paper), would for instance result in a separate legislation to establish the market review instrument combined with a modification of EU public procurement directives (remedy directive in particular) to include new legal actions for competitors based on the evidence of foreign subsidies. Additional measures such as the rejection of abnormally low tenders based on distortive subsidies would also be translated by a modification of EU public procurement directives. AFEP detailed views on options listed in the roadmap are outlined in an attached position paper.
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Response to Commission Delegated Regulation on taxonomy-alignment of undertakings reporting non-financial information

8 Sept 2020

Afep, the French Association of Large Companies, welcome the opportunity to provide feedback on the inception impact assessment of the delegated regulation to be adopted by the Commission regarding taxonomy-related disclosures. We would like to take this opportunity to address the following points (see attached document for details): − It is essential to ensure coordination between the disclosure requirements of the Taxonomy Regulation, the SFDR and the NFRD ; − Regarding the process, we insist again on the need to involve companies in the workstream. This could be achieved by establishing an expert group including a significant proportion of companies to advise the Commission on the drafting of the delegated act ; − The timeline of application of the new reporting requirements needs clarification (eg. publication in 2022 of revenue, Capex and Opex related to financial year 2021) ; − The notion of “how” the activities of the companies are associated with economic activities that qualify as environmentally sustainable, should be clarified: we understand that the question here is whether or not companies comply with or meet the technical screening criteria ? This raises the issue of how such compliance or qualification should be disclosed and explained in the non-financial statement without generating additional costs, liability and unjustified administrative burden to preparers. − Clarification would also be welcome regarding how the proportion of revenue, Capex and Opex realised outside the EU – in third countries – should be assessed against the criteria of the Taxonomy and accounted for. − As regards the “to what extent” the activities are associated with economic activities that qualify as environmentally sustainable, this would be assessed using the revenue, Capex and Opex indicators. We recommend therefore not creating any additional obligations nor indicators in this regard. − The Delegated act should also clarify the obligations of companies whose activities are not yet covered by technical screening criteria, including transition and enabling activities. - Finally, regarding the new obligation to include in the non-financial statement the proportion of sustainable revenue, Capex and Opex, we consider that the only way forward is to allow flexibility to companies to adapt to this new requirement which will be very challenging in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic. The forthcoming Delegated act should not impose a strict methodology to companies. We would in particular recommend allowing companies to publish estimated data or consider that these indicators are (sustainable) alternative performance measures (APM) in the meaning of ESMA’s guidelines, and could therefore be treated in the same way : each company would define its APMs and their components as well as the basis of calculation adopted, including details of any material hypotheses or assumptions used ; the methodology would be disclosed and remain consistent over time.
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Meeting with Kerstin Jorna (Director-General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs)

22 Jul 2020 · Discuss Covid-19 Crisis and recovery plan; Digital Services Act and Industrial Strategy

Response to Delegated act on the minimum information of exemption documents describing a takeover, a merger or a division

12 Jul 2020

Afep welcomes the following changes introduced by the Commission in comparison with the technical advice published by ESMA in July 2018: - The draft delegated regulation published by the Commission for feedback is shorter, simpler and more comprehensible; - Article 2.2 of the draft delegated regulation offers additional relief where the equity securities offered in connection with a transaction are to be admitted to trading on a regulated market and are fungible with and represent no more than 10% of equity securities already admitted to trading on the same regulated market; - Article 3 regarding incorporation by reference extends the scope to other documents that are published in accordance with national law where those documents are relevant to the transaction. Thus said, we would like to repeat our concerns regarding the approach adopted: - The Prospectus Regulation provides for an exemption of prospectus in case of takeovers, mergers or divisions on the basis that information is already required by other pieces of EU legislation (the Takeover Directive and Directive (EU) 2017/1132 and Company Law package directive) supplemented, as the case may be, by national provisions. Applying to the “Exempted Document” the principles applicable to prospectuses and/or requiring the same level of information would not be consistent with the exemption provided by the Prospectus Regulation. - Therefore we consider that the principles applicable to a prospectus should not apply to the “Exempted Document” and issuers should not be required to disclose the same level of information than in a prospectus. - In particular, the following disclosure requirements – specific to prospectuses – should not be required: a. Persons responsible (section 1 of the annex to the draft delegated regulation); b. The summary of information published under MAR over the last 12 months (Item 2.7 of the annex); c. The working capital statement (item 4.2 of the annex). We also consider that some disclosure requirements are not relevant or go further than what is already required by different pieces of EU or national legislation and considered sufficient to inform shareholders in case of takeover bids or mergers. Please see details in our contrbution attached.
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Response to Digital Services Act: deepening the Internal Market and clarifying responsibilities for digital services

30 Jun 2020

The French Association of Large Companies (AFEP) welcomes the European Commission’s consultation on a combined roadmap/inception impact assessment on the Digital Services Act package and strongly support the Commission’s intention to revise the E-Commerce Directive. This 20-year-old legislative framework indeed imperfectly responds to new digital behaviours and uses as well as the emergence of new and powerful economic players. AFEP wishes for an update of the text to strengthen its legal certainty while preserving some of its most structuring principles, such as the principle of limited liability (while clarifying its scope ) and the principle of no general monitoring obligation to protect simple technically neutral intermediate operators. Here are our main preliminary remarks on the revision of the E-commerce Directive: • AFEP supports the drafting of a Regulation to harmonise these new provisions and to reinforce consumer confidence within the single market, which must be equivalent to that known in physical trade. • To ensure effective protection of European consumers and holders of intellectual property rights, as well as the conditions for fair competition between players in e-commerce, it is necessary to extend the scope to services supplied to recipients on European territory, by a provider who is not established in the Union. • The future text should apply to all actors, regardless of their size, if hosting services as defined below is the main activity of the intermediary and that it is likely to create risks for the recipients of the service. Exemptions could be provided (for example, exemption from provisions which could create an administrative burden). • The rights of any interested party (consumers, holders of intellectual property rights, etc.) must be ensured with a level of protection equivalent to that existing in physical sales points: as in any commercial relationship, professional sellers using digital platforms acting under a pseudonym must be able to be identified through verification of the concerned platform, with modalities to be specified. • This review should be an opportunity to clarify the conditions that must be met by digital players to qualify as active or passive hosts. The criteria from European case-law allowing to define an active host should be integrated into the future legislative proposal. • Active hosts should benefit from the safe harbor provisions if only they prove they have fulfilled their vigilance plan for all their activities. This vigilance plan is based on the following four principles: o identify the risks o prevent infringements o remedy the negative consequences o report on the way they remedy it • Therefore, the responsibility of active hosts would be determined not for the existence of illegal content on their websites, but for the lack of implementation of a vigilance plan, including ex-ante control measures and responsiveness after notification. Pease find Afep’s contribution in more details in the position paper attached.
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Response to Investment protection and facilitation framework

23 Jun 2020

AFEP, the French association of Large companies, has been strongly advocating for concrete actions to remedy the consequences of the decision by most Member States to dismantle their bilateral investment treaties materialized in the multilateral treaty on the termination of individual BITs signed in April 2020. AFEP therefore welcomes the initiative of the European Commission to launch an inception impact assessment on (a) possible legal initiative(s) to improve the level of protection for intra-EU investment, both on substantive rights and dispute settlement. The IAA on a future EU investment protection framework should: 1) Identify exhaustively investors’ rights to be protected by reference to EU treaties, member States legal traditions and international law instruments on investment Based on core principles anchored in EU treaties ( freedom of capital movement, freedom of investment, equal treatment, legitimate expectations and right to good administration), it is of utmost importance to itemise concrete rights to be recognised to investors in the context of expropriation and public policy changes in the light of Member State legal traditions, international law instruments such as UNCITRAL model law , existing EU and Member States investment agreements and relevant caselaw. This specification should go down to elements such as rules for acknowledging and calculating a compensable damage or specific procedural guarantees.  2) Review Member States existing legal frameworks with a view to better identifying discrepancies in the level of protection granted from a Member State to another. It really matters to verify how investors’ rights are enforced in practice and whether it results in uneven protection due to significant divergences in terms of regulatory or judicial treatment on, for instance, to the amount of damages granted, the right to interests and calculation methods as well procedural guarantees granted before national courts. 3) Assess the merit of EU legislative approach for investment protection in the light of cross-border investment, facilitation, level-playing field between EU investors and between EU and non-EU investors and effectiveness of procedural guarantees granted to investors The fact that Member States had so far accepted legally binding instruments based on international law to ascertain investors’ rights and to design ad hoc dispute settlement mechanisms, (former intra-EU BITs, remaining BITs with non-EU countries or investment agreements concluded at the EU level) advocates for a EU-wide unified or at least an harmonized approach for substantive rights and dispute settlement to make sure that investors are granted the same level of protection across the EU and are not offered a weaker and less unified protection in comparison with non-EU investors. In this perspective, non-regulatory solutions are not likely to provide the level-playing field that EU investors are entitled to request between themselves and with regard to non-EU operators investing on the internal markets that rely on rights and dispute settlement mechanisms enshrined in BITs. the IIA should work on the elaboration of a “dispute settlement golden standard “in terms of procedural guarantees and speediness and then apply it to various options to determine which of those are the most likely to meet this standard, which should be even more protective and precise than the one proposed by the EU for Investment agreements with third countries. the IIA should then verify whether harmonisation of administrative or judicial remedies in Member States could achieve the objective of impartial and swift proceeding in comparison with the option of a EU investment court that could deal with a large number of dispute. It seems that priority should be given to an EU-level jurisdiction based on its capacity to ensure a maximum degree of level-playing between EU investors. The attached paper outlines our position in details.
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Response to Minimum standards for benchmarks labelled as EU Climate Transition and EU Paris-aligned Benchmarks

6 May 2020

Afep, the French Association of Large Companies, wishes to make the following comments: - Greenhouse gases scopes (articles 5 and 14) : the scope 3 data may be very heterogeneous for a significant period of time considering the variety of scope 3 subcategories to be tackled and the capacity of companies to collect reliable data. Companies wonder if the phasing-in schedule of scope 3 was set up after consultation of the involved stakeholders. - 7% GHG emissions reduction objectives (articles 7, 9 and 10): these objectives appear very challenging in comparison to past energy efficiency improvements and will result in a selection of a very limited number of companies. There is a high risk the two types of benchmarks might not shift investments towards companies currently in transition in view of the EU 2050 climate neutrality target. An alternative would be to target companies having adopted GHG commitments following recognized standards and subject to regular controls/reviews. - Enabling activites: the Climate benchmarks requirement in the draft delegated acts do not favour “pro climate enabling activities”, in comparison to the Taxonomy Regulation. It is important to ensure consistency with this Regulation with an extension to those enabling activities, possibly through a threshold of their turnover dedicated to climate solutions. - Missed targets (article 7 §4 a and b): the cases of missed targets in subparagraphs a and b seem to be redundant: subparagraph a should be deleted. - Definition enterprise value (article 1): the definition of enterprise value including cash would be more relevant if based an average market capitalisation covering a longer period of time to avoid variations of GHG intensity due only to market conditions. - Exclusions for Paris-aligned Benchmarks (article 11): these benchmarks should be strictly aligned on the objectives of the Paris Agreement and of the Taxonomy Regulation. Exclusions could prevent some economic sectors to engage in a transition process which would be contrary to the objectives of the action plan on sustainable finance. Please find attached more detailed comments.
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Response to Report on the application of the General Data Protection Regulation

29 Apr 2020

The French Association of Large Companies (AFEP) welcomes the consultation of the European Commission on its roadmap for the report on the application of the general data protection regulation (GDPR). This report intends to identify potential problems in the application of the GDPR, in particular as regards the issue of international transfer of personal data to third countries and existing adequacy decisions (Chapter V) as well as the cooperation and consistency mechanism between national data protection authorities (Chapter VII). French companies substantially ask for: • an evolution of the approach on data transfer towards more liberalisation, given the growing convergence of personal data protection regimes; • being able, in any case, to rely more on adequacy decisions rather than using by default alternative instruments (binding corporate rules and above all standard data protection clauses) and therefore for an increase in the number of adequacy decisions and the acceleration of their adoption procedures; • to do this, a clarification of the criteria on which the European Commission takes adequacy decisions, with a priority notably given to the countries with which free trade agreements are negotiated and the countries with the closest legal architecture; • strengthening reciprocity in data exchanges by using free trade agreements as leverage, and including it as an explicit and mandatory criterion for the adoption of adequacy decisions; • better coordination of national authorities for the implementation of this regulation; • greater harmonisation of practices and interpretations; • an update of certain provisions You will find AFEP's detailed position in the document attached to this contribution.
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Meeting with Antoine Colombani (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans)

24 Apr 2020 · Green deal and recovery; sustainable finance; carbon border adjustment

Response to EU rules on industrial emissions - revision

21 Apr 2020

AFEP, the French Association of Large Companies, welcomes the consultation of the European Commission on an Inception Impact Assessment in view of a possible revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive, following a public consultation in the summer of 2019 to which AFEP responded. Companies consider IED as a very efficient tool to regulate and improve industrial emissions while taking into account both technical and economic constraints. Indeed, as shown by the European Environmental Agency in recent reports: • LCP emissions between 2004-2015 decreased by 77 % for sulphur dioxide, 49 % for nitrogen oxides, and 81 % for dust particles, all three key pollutants deriving from those plants (see 2019 report on Large Combustion Plants); • Emissions for energy use in industry and industrial processes and product use over the period 2000- 2017 have regularly decreased for main pollutants (in percentage). See EEA 2019 report on air quality in Europe) and the graphs in AFEP's position published with this contribution. AFEP member companies believe that the IED is effectively meeting its regulatory objectives and therefore should remain as stable as possible to avoid additional burden. In this regard, it is important to maintain the EU ETS as the core legal instrument for tackling CO2 emissions from industrial installations, without prejudice to Article 9§1 of the IED, as it is already based on CO2 performance benchmarks. The IED is a tool dedicated to local pollutants. It is not appropriate to global phenomenon such as global warming. The IED should therefore not overlap with other EU legislation, such as the EU ETS. Companies consider that some procedural improvements could be explored while avoiding changes to the Directive: - BREF process and BATs: o when drafting BAT conclusions, improve the way adverse economic impacts costs for industries exposed to international competition can be better taken into account; o assess systematically BAT total costs of ownership – including investment and operating costs; o focus more on key environmental indicators to better address the techniques with a higher potential to reduce the most important pollutants; o clarify the methodology to derive BAT-AEL based on a transparent data collection. - Public communication: define how to improve the information process on air quality towards the public, by focussing on positive results as well as areas of concern in a balanced way. Minor and very focused changes should be carefully assessed in the impact assessment regarding the scope of the IED: - solve difficulties in identifying main activities vs secondary activities linked to BATs. - clarify for operators whether their activities are covered by transversal BATs. - confirm whether “agro-industrial” activities are activities corresponding to industry and agri-food activities. - assess whether activities with no air pollutants (such as hydrogen produced by electrolysis) or with low levels of local pollutants should be maintained in Annex I of IED. - assess under which technical and economic conditions fluorous emissions in water (PFOA/PFAS) could be introduced in Annex I to further reduce persistent organic pollutants.
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Response to 2030 Climate Target Plan

15 Apr 2020

AFEP, the French Association of Large Companies, welcomes the consultation of the European Commission on an Inception Impact Assessment for a 2030 Climate Target Plan. This consultation is of utmost importance for companies as the goal is to assess the feasibility of more stringent greenhouse gases emissions targets for 2030 at EU level through an amendment of the proposed climate law. The current COVID-19 pandemic clearly shows the difficulties to react to unexpected events at the global level. In this context, companies consider that the ten next years will be crucial to provide solutions to address the expected risk of climate change while taking into account social acceptance and economic and competitivity constraints. The impact assessment will be a huge challenge as it will examine many policies (eg: Effort Sharing Directive, Emissions Trading Directive, Renewable Energy Directive, Energy Efficiency Directive...) covering a wide number of sectors. AFEP member companies support the target of the Paris Agreement by respecting regulations and taking voluntary commitments to lower their GHG emissions where they operate, generally at a worldwide scale. Given the economic effects of the current pandemic and its possible impacts in the longer term, it is important to define in the impact assessment under what conditions the current 2030 energy and GHG emissions targets will be reached. In this context, companies wish for this impact assessment to determine how the EU and all Member States could strike the right balance between GHG emissions constraints, with the current or additional set of legislation, and more significant support to sustain low carbon solutions inside the EU - from the R&D until their rollout. Companies wish for the Commission to assess the feasibility of each GHG emissions reduction scenario (40%, 45 %, 50% and 55%) by 2030 compared to 1990 within the EU in regard to the various enabling factors among which: improvement of EU competitiveness and attractiveness through the possible use of carbon footprint target and related provisions, the rise of low carbon investments given constraints on investments cycles, and acceptable targets sharing between ETS and non-ETS sectors considering energy intensity/exposure to international trade while maintaining carbon leakage measures/compensation of indirect costs provisions. The pdf document attached to this feedback develops the association’s comments in more details and lists all the enabling factors that will for companies be key to assess the feasibility of each GHG emissions reduction scenario.
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Response to Revision of the Energy Tax Directive

31 Mar 2020

The French Association of Large Companies (AFEP) supports the process towards a revision of the Energy Taxation Directive which should lead to more consistency with the new EU climate ambition. However, due to COVID-19 pandemic, Europe is facing a global economic collapse. In this context, AFEP recommends that the European Commission updates climate, energy and industry policies to mitigate the consequences of the current economic crisis. Thus, it would be highly desirable to build the revision of the Energy Taxation Directive on the publication of the national and European economic recovery plans. The impact assessment should especially ensure that the impact on climate is better reflected with updated tax rates, reductions and exemptions based on approved life cycle analyses. However, the revision process must not result in further increased burdens for businesses exposed to international competition. It should enhance a pragmatic transition towards relevant energy-efficient and low carbon solutions: • Implementing an European harmonized taxation framework is a necessity. The European Commission should carry out a thorough and realistic impact assessment, notably to avoid distortion risks between Member States incurred by their willingness to include or not a CO2 component (in addition to an energy component) in their energy taxes and to exonerate or not ETS sectors’ CO2 emissions ; in this regard, the impact assessment should analyse the feasibility of a level playing field between Member States. In any case, emissions from companies which are already included within the EU ETS should not be subject to carbon component of the taxation. In addition to the revision of minimum levels of taxation throughout time, the impact assessment could explore whether setting up ceilings is feasible. • Restoring global energy cost competitiveness is a priority. It would also be appropriate to replicate in this Directive the same specific exemptions for energy-intensive (especially those mentioned in article 17) 1) a)), intensive uses of energy products and electricity (as defined in article 2) 4)) and trade-exposed sectors that exist in the ETS to avoid competitive distortions with regions outside the EU ; those companies could also benefit from compensations through subsidies to boost investments in low carbon technologies. This could also be the case for maritime and air transport which are also energy-intensive and exposed to international trade. • Setting up a realistic transition. The impact assessment study should identify measures to ensure: predictability, progressivity, business and social acceptance, availability of alternative solutions and transparency/relevancy on the use of the additional tax resources. • Energy Taxation Directive should promote more the decarbonisation of the EU energy and industry sectors The revised ETD should increase support for the development of low carbon alternative energy carriers (eg: sustainable biofuels, biomethane and low carbon or carbon-free hydrogen) possibly with specific exemptions, remove incoherent treatment of some of these carriers in the various elements of the EU policy (ETD, ETS, RED, emission performance standards, …) and foster innovation and investments for low carbon technologies. Last but not least, careful attention should be paid to ensure the accessibility of energy to vulnerable households, possibly through the use of the taxation revenues
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AFEP calls for industry protection in carbon border tax design

31 Mar 2020
Topic — A proposal to tax carbon on imports to prevent global carbon leakage.
Message — AFEP recommends investigating if a carbon border adjustment can be combined with ETS scheme and pre-existing tools to address carbon leakage. They suggest evaluating the mechanism's WTO compliance and potential retaliatory measures by major trading partners. The association also requests a comparative analysis of alternative instruments to ensure improved competitiveness for the EU industry.123
Why — Maintaining free allowances alongside a carbon tax would protect their members' financial competitiveness.4
Impact — International trading partners may suffer from unilateral costs and potential retaliatory trade measures.5
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Response to Revision of Non-Financial Reporting Directive

27 Feb 2020

French companies have been engaged for many years in putting CSR at the heart of their strategies and are considered world leaders on third-party verified corporate responsibility reporting. They present the highest level of non-financial information and can provide a legitimate and experienced-based contribution to the Commission’s work on the revision of the 2014 Directive. In view of the revision of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD), AFEP, the French Association of Large Companies, would like to stress the following key messages: - A harmonised non-financial reporting framework developed under EU leadership is needed to stop the proliferation of various public or private reporting initiatives which are not aligned and make reporting extremely time-consuming and confusing for corporates. The latter are indeed confronted with numerous questionnaires and ratings, based on different methodologies and definitions. - The future EU standard of non-financial information should aim at sufficient convergence with existing reporting initiatives and be based on their best practices. From the start of the process, it should include a dialogue with other major jurisdictions and with major extra-European investors to make sure that it is recognised by them, and avoid that EU companies have to comply with several standards when they operate worldwide. - Companies should be put at the heart of the standardisation process. The non-financial reporting framework needs to be elaborated in a fully transparent way and in close collaboration with companies to make sure it is operational and reflects the sustainability policies implemented by companies. The governance of the standardisation body should reflect European values (e.g. transparency, fairness and inclusion of all stakeholders). The decision-making process should not be in the hands of a single actor or group of interest. - Non-financial reporting obligations should be extended to non-EU companies operating in the EU if they exceed a certain threshold of global turnover. This is essential to avoid unfair competition. - Companies do accept to disclose in non-financial reports how they define materiality, and which processes they have put in place to identify their material environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. - However, companies need to remain in control of the definition of what is material information according to their specific activity and sector. They are totally opposed to the introduction of an obligation to produce a negative statement, explaining why certain issues are considered as not material, which would indeed lead to illegible reports and a bureaucratic box-ticking approach of materiality. AFEP's detailed position is attached to this feedback.
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Meeting with Valdis Dombrovskis (Executive Vice-President) and

5 Feb 2020 · Sustainable finance; Future of Capital Markets Union; Protection of intra-EU investments; Competitiveness of European businesses

Response to Alignment EU rules on capital requirements to international standards (prudential requirements and market discipline)

18 Dec 2019

AFEP – the French Association of Private Enterprises – represents 113 of the largest private corporations operating in France and takes part in the public debate in order to provide pragmatic solutions to develop a competitive French and European economy. While the European Union is about to start the transposition of the 2017 Basel accords, the first results of the impact assessments performed by the European Banking Authority show that these accords could have a detrimental impact on the economy. As a matter of fact, European banks would have to mobilise significant amounts of own funds to meet the new prudential requirements. We believe that this cannot be achieved without recessive effects on the financing of the European economy. Our members support measures aimed at strengthening the stability and security of the financial system. Financial stability plays a crucial role in ensuring an efficient allocation of resources and functioning of financial markets. Companies are however concerned about the potential effects of the finalisation of the Basel III accords and consider that such finalisation should not, especially in the context of the Capital Markets Union, hampered the financing of their business, access to financial services nor deteriorate their global competitiveness. In particular, the transposition of the 2017 Basel accords could have the following impacts for corporate clients of European banks: - Specialised lending projects could be negatively impacted and see a decline in the volume of funds allocated. This would have substantial negative effects on the real economy considering the key role of infrastructures and transports (rail and aircraft). - Trade finance could also suffer from a blunt transposition of the 2017 Basel accords while the development of exports is a strategic issue for our members which operate on an international level. - The management of financial risks, FX risk in particular, could also be negatively impacted if the existing exemption of own funds requirements for CVA risk applicable to transactions on OTC derivatives with non-financial counterparties was to be removed. As of today, we consider that these impacts have not been thoroughly assessed. Therefore, we call for a wider impact assessment taking into account all potential impacts for non-financial companies in order to identify and remedy to any side effects that would be detrimental to European companies. Finally, we would like to insist on the benefits for our members and the European economy of a competitive European banking sector.
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Meeting with Timo Pesonen (Acting Director-General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs)

15 Jul 2019 · Courtesy meeting to present themselves and their interest in Business growth, SMIT and IPR protection

Response to Revising the rules for free allocation in the EU Emissions Trading System

9 Jul 2019

AFEP (French Association of Large Companies) member companies have strongly supported the ETS Directive provisions aiming to make the free allocation of emission allowances more dynamic considering activity level changes. Therefore, elaborating robust and coherent implementing measures is of utmost importance. While supporting the general objective of the draft implementing Regulation which has been proposed on 11 June 2019, AFEP asks the Commission to tackle the following technical issues in view of the final adoption: 1. Issue of the timing of adjustments While the draft implementing Regulation states that the adjustment of allocation “shall apply as of the year following the two calendar years used to determine the average activity level” (Article 3 paragraph 1), it also mentions that the activity level report has to be submitted by March 31 (Article 3 paragraph 3). However, this deadline is set after the deadline of yearly allocations which is on February 28. Therefore, applying this rule would not be compatible with an adjustment of allocations in year « n », considering average activity levels of year « n-1 » and « n-2 ». It would be necessary to delay the adjusted allocations in year « n+1 ». Consequently, this provision does not fit with the reactivity objective of this measure. AFEP member companies wish that the Commission could clarify provisions in the final implementing Regulation in order to define possibilities of allocation adjustments occurring just after the submission of activity level report (March 31) in year « n », based on the average activity level of years « n-1 » and « n-2 ». 2. 5% Threshold for subsequent allocations The draft implementing Regulation sets up a threshold of 15 % increase/decrease of activity level in order to trigger possible allocation adjustments. However, it also introduces an additional threshold of 5 % variation of the activity level after the first allocation, once the 15% threshold has been reached (Article 5 paragraph 2). AFEP member companies advocate in favour of a most dynamic allocation and a full linear approach of adjustments once the first 15 % threshold has been reached, thus removing the 5% additional threshold for subsequent adjustments. This method is the only one which enable to reflect the exact situation of the activity level of an installation. 3. Absolute value threshold Apart from the 15% threshold, AFEP member companies support the introduction of an alternative absolute threshold, as the 15% may represent a very high quantity of production for large installations. This absolute value threshold already exists in the current phase 3. An absolute value of activity level variation (possibly 50 000 teCO2) should be used as a reference for triggering allocation adjustments.   4. Provisions applying for “0 activity” years The provision of the draft implementing Regulation regarding “0 activity” level (Article 5 paragraph 4) is correct for installations which definitively cease operation. However, they are detrimental to installations which would have to temporarily stop their activity for some years and would resume it afterward. For the year following the restart of the activity, the allocation adjustment should be based on the average of the activity levels of the last two years with “non 0” activity (activity levels before the stop and after the restart), instead of the average of the « 0 activity » year and the first year of activity after the restart of operation.
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Meeting with Olivier Guersent (Director-General Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union)

12 Jun 2019 · Finance durable, notamment la taxonomie des activités durables d’un point de vue environnemental. Révision des lignes directrices sur la Directive sur le reporting non financier, encadrement des agences de notation extra-financières, les suites du Fitness check on corporate public reporting framework, poursuite de l’Union des marchés de capitaux and Mise en œuvre des règlements Prospectus et EMIR.

Response to Revision of the ETS State aid Guidelines

17 Jan 2019

General comments Direct and indirect emission carbon costs are both a result of the EU ETS Directive. They are equally harmful for competitiveness and investments, but they are treated differently. Direct costs are compensated through free allowances, while compensation for indirect costs remains optional through state aid at the discretion of the Member States. This generates a difference of treatment without any reasonable basis. Since the first ETS Directive, AFEP has been advocating for a mandatory and harmonised compensation of indirect costs at EU level, for example through a percentage of the auctioning volume. In this context, AFEP truly regrets that the final agreement of the revised ETS Directive in 2018 fell short of creating a harmonised compensation mechanism for indirect costs. The Directive thus maintains the status quo, while laying down a reporting obligation for Member States where the amount of compensation exceeds 25 % of the auctioning revenues. In light of the forthcoming draft ETS state aid guidelines post 2020, AFEP highlights the following priorities: • The new guidelines on State Aids on indirect emissions have to restore the competitiveness of EU industry from carbon leakage until all countries outside EU set up climate policies that are consistent with the Paris Agreement and are as ambitious as EU climate policies. • As mentioned in the general comments, there should be no discrimination between direct and indirect CO2 costs. In this view, the list of sectors which are eligible for financial compensation should be the same as the list defining the sectors exposed to the risk of carbon leakage; therefore, benchmarks should be updated accordingly. • As long as there is a competitive distortion triggered by different climate constraints between EU exposed industries and industries outside EU, there is no reason for reducing the percentage of indirect costs which can be compensated: they should remain stable over time. For the same reason, the percentage subject to compensation should be set at an efficient level: 85 %. • The financial compensation should not be capped to the level of the average production or electricity consumption at installation level during period 2005-2011: the compensation should be defined on the basis of actual production or electricity consumption. • The CO2 emission factors should be defined at updated regional levels, according to the investments implemented since the last guidelines to reduce congestion; in this context, a single CO2 emission factor should be maintained for the region “Central-West Europe” (CWE), including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and The Netherlands, as laid down in Annex IV of the current guidelines. It should be calculated on the basis of the last available data.
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Response to A simplified prospectus for companies and investors in Europe

24 Dec 2018

Additional comments on the Commission draft delegated regulation regarding the format, content, scrutiny and approval of prospectuses.
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Meeting with Isabelle Magne (Cabinet of Vice-President Cecilia Malmström)

25 Jul 2018 · overview of trade policy

Meeting with David Boublil (Cabinet of Commissioner Pierre Moscovici)

5 Jun 2018 · La Réforme fiscale US, CCCTB et fiscalité de brevet

Meeting with Valdis Dombrovskis (Vice-President) and

16 Feb 2018 · Structural reforms in France; macroeconomic and fiscal issues; corporate taxation

Response to Review of the European Supervisory Authorities

23 Jan 2018

The French Association of Large Companies (AFEP) is supportive of the Commission’s objectives to achieve a Capital Markets Union and foster the integration of European markets. AFEP agrees, to a certain extent, that strengthening the supervision of European markets could help achieve these objectives. Harmonised rules are essential in achieving a single market and in ensuring a level playing field within the EU. Since their establishment, the three ESAs have significantly contributed to building a single rule book, although harmonisation of practices and consistent implementation of EU Legislation throughout the Union could still be improved. The key question in this regard, AFEP believes, is not whether the ESAs have sufficient powers but whether they make an efficient and relevant use of their powers. An extension of the powers or remit of the ESAs – in particular ESMA – would only be relevant in infrastructure and post-market activities, benchmark indices supervision and third country equivalence. AFEP does not support the proposals about direct supervision of regulated entities, such as listed companies. Effective direct supervision requires proximity with the regulated entities, expertise in the applicable domestic legislations, not to mention knowledge of the language. Retail investor protection and supervision of advertisements also require proximity and familiarity with national rules, local practices and investment behaviour and patterns. AFEP considers that National Competent Authorities are better placed to carry out these tasks and that the subsidiary principle calls for maintaining direct supervision of the abovementioned entities at national level. Transferring the supervision to ESMA could result in a more complex and less flexible regime that will increase costs and administrative burden for the concerned regulated entities while major pieces of EU legislation are being implemented. With regards to the strengthening of the powers of the ESAs and the extension of their remit, AFEP also believes that there is, generally speaking, a lack of rationale and substance in the Commission’s proposals. It is therefore difficult to assess whether these measures are relevant and proportionate. As regards the changes in the governance of the ESAs, adequate checks and balances should be put in place to avoid any concentration of power in the hands of the Chairperson on the Executive Board – although companies would prefer a status quo. In order to reinforce the ESAs’ accountability before the European Parliament and the Council, the work programmes of the Authorities as well as the strategic supervisory plans should be presented to the European Parliament and the Council for approval and not just for information. Transparency of the Executive Board should also be enhanced and agendas and minutes of the meetings should be made public. AFEP also believes that the role of stakeholders in the ESAs’ governance should be reinforced, in particular through an improved review procedure of the ESA’s guidelines and recommendations by Stakeholder Groups. Finally, Afep is strongly opposed to a change of the current funding structure in order to move to an industry-funded model. The mission of the ESAs to develop regulatory and implementing technical standards should be funded by the European Union. The tasks carried out by the ESAs to foster a common supervisory culture and ensure supervisory convergence should be funded by the National Competent Authorities because they directly benefit from the convergence work. Companies consider that the current funding model is the best way of ensuring the ESAs’ work programmes remain in line with their mandate. This model also ensures stable funding resources to the ESAs compared to a model that would be based on a direct, partial or full, industry funding.
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Meeting with Kevin O'Connell (Cabinet of Commissioner Věra Jourová)

27 Nov 2017 · whistleblowers' protection

Meeting with Jean-Luc Demarty (Director-General Trade)

16 Nov 2017 · Overview on trade related issues of relevance to French multinational companies

Meeting with David Boublil (Cabinet of Commissioner Pierre Moscovici)

16 Nov 2017 · AFEP representatives presented their point of view on the tax proposals, French patent box regime and public CBCR.

Response to Evaluation Energy Taxation Directive

26 Sept 2017

Regarding the evaluation of the Energy Taxation Directive (ETD), AFEP, the French Association of Large Companies, encourages the Commission to: • Analyse (i) how Member States apply the exclusions from the scope, as laid down in Article 2 paragraph 4 of the ETD (in particular the exclusion of the dual use of energy products) and (ii) the impact of this provision on the energy-intensive industry competitiveness across Europe; promote the convergence of national practices in the EU in this field; • Analyse the consistency between the ETD and the other European policies, in particular the Environment and Energy State aid guidelines; • Clarify the taxation regime of bio-based energies in view of a better convergence between Member States; and • In line with the 2050 EU Climate Roadmap and given the increase of CO2 taxation initiatives in many Member States over the past few years, reassess the opportunity to include a CO2 rate within the ETD, while excluding the ETS installations and the sectors exposed to the international competition; this would create a level playing field between Member States and enhance low carbon investments.
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Meeting with Dominique Ristori (Director-General Energy) and France Industrie

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Meeting with Pierre Moscovici (Commissioner)

17 May 2016 · discussion sur situation économique européenne

Meeting with Stephen Quest (Director-General Taxation and Customs Union)

18 Mar 2016 · Exchange of views on the Anti-tax Avoidance package

Meeting with Pierre Moscovici (Commissioner)

25 Nov 2015 · questions fiscales

Meeting with Maria Elena Scoppio (Cabinet of Commissioner Pierre Moscovici)

17 Nov 2015 · New initiatives in coorporate taxation

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24 Mar 2015 · Key Enabling Technologies; Energy Union

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22 Jan 2015 · ETS Directive and the COP 21 in 2015