“Stop-the-clock” Directive: Council gives green light to postpone CSRD and CSDDD | RÖDL

On April 14, 2025, the Council of the EU approved the postponement of the EU regulations on sustainability reporting and corporate due diligence. After the proposal had already been approved by the Council on March 26, 2025, and adopted by the EU Parliament on April 3, 2025, this step was considered a mere formality. Companies in so-called “wave 2” and “wave 3” will each receive a two-year delay until a CSRD-compliant sustainability report must be submitted for the first time. In the case of the CSDDD, the start of application for first-time adopters will be postponed by one year. 

The swift agreement on the top-priority proposal is intended to create legal certainty for companies with regard to the start of application of the reporting and due diligence obligations as well as to give the co-legislators time to reach an agreement on the planned changes to the content of the CSRD, EU taxonomy and CSDDD. Like the postponement that has now been agreed, these are part of the “Omnibus I” package to strengthen the EU’s competitiveness. 

You can find out which companies in the CSRD and CSDDD user group are specifically affected and which deadlines now apply to the two sets of regulations here. 

With its publication in the Official Journal of the EU on April 16, 2025, the law officially entered into force on April 17, 2025. The directive must now be transposed into national law. The member states have been given a deadline of December 31, 2025, to do so.