EU Survey for stakeholders on Gold-plating
By TOS Editorial team
There is quite a lot of noise in the EU that there are too many regulations, sometimes over-regulation, over-interpretation, over-implementation of regulations that hampers instead of supports-promotes sustainable, ethical business practices. This is also happening with the EU organic regulation.
Simplification is, since last year, at the forefront of the Commission’s agenda to support better competitiveness of companies that want to comply with the latest regulations. In April 2026, the Commission communicated with its internal agencies A Simpler, Clearer and Better Enforced EU Rulebook. This indicates, amongst others, that the Commission will work on a toolkit of best practices and criteria to help Member States identify and avoid gold-plating in the national transposition (adaptation) and implementation of EU legislation.
In this context, the Commission launched an EU wide Survey to collect information from stakeholders on gold-plating that is impacting the Single Market. The purpose of this survey is to better understand:
- If/how your business operations are impacted by over-implementation (gold-plating) of EU legislation.
- The nature and volume of costs that your business incurs due to gold-plating and impact on your business growth.
- Tested or suggested solutions to address these burdens.
European businesses were invited to participate in this survey and/or share this information and the link with their network. The survey ran until 15 September 2026.
The survey is available in the following link https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/goldplating-business-survey. The EU Commission thanks those that contribute and explains that the feedback from organic companies “will contribute to our Simplification agenda, including the development of a Toolkit for Member States to help them prevent gold-plating practices”.
An email address is provided for further clarification GROW-SIMPLIFICATION@ec.europa.eu, in DG GROW, Unit B1 Planning and Simplification.
Reactions to the development of the EU Simplification agenda
In the meanwhile, the organic sector in the EU is following the progress of this initiative with interest, and opinions are already emerging about how it is being carried out.
In this regard, the magazine BioEcoActual (see link below) has just published an interview with Aurora Abad, Secretary General of OPTA Europe (Organic Processing and Trade Association).
OPTA welcomed the Commission’s efforts to simplify the regulatory framework. However, it also expressed concern about aspects of the proposal that affect international trade.
On the one hand, both the Council and the European Parliament have supported the Commission’s proposal to extend the duration of existing equivalence agreements, although the length of the extension has not yet been agreed upon. OPTA Europe is concerned about the more restrictive approach adopted by the legislators on trade matters: they are attempting to preserve the existing equivalence agreements by extending their duration, while simultaneously proposing unilateral changes to the conditions under which those agreements operate.
Beyond the commercial implications, OPTA Europe also regrets that none of the EU institutions has fully addressed the practical consequences these changes on trade agreements would have for certification, traceability, and controls.
According to OPTA, if these concerns are not addressed during the tripartite negotiations (between the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council), the final outcome risks delivering exactly what the sector wanted to avoid: a few steps forward and, unfortunately, many steps backward.