European Union legislation that is still pending on air quality and waste will be scrapped by Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, according to a leaked draft of the 2015 Commission work programme seen by European Voice.

In a letter sent to the 28 commissioners last month, Frans Timmermans, the Commission vice-president who is responsible for ‘better regulation’, had already signalled the Commission’s intention to withdraw these proposals. Campaigners, stakeholders, MEPs and member states have criticised the decision. Eleven member states wrote to Juncker and Timmermans earlier this month asking him not to scrap the air and waste proposals as the legislative process has already begun.

The draft programme, which was discussed at yesterday’s weekly college meeting of commissioners, says that the air package will be “modified as part of the legislative follow-up to the 2030 energy and climate package”. For the waste package, the justification given is that there is “no foreseeable agreement” between member states and MEPs.

The draft may be altered before it is approved during next week’s college meeting in Strasbourg on Tuesday (16 December). It will be presented to the European Parliament the following day.

The work programme contains a list of 23 new initiatives for 2015 and 80 pieces of pending legislation that will be withdrawn. Many of these are for reasons of obsolescence or redundancy, and their withdrawal was previewed by the ‘refit’ report issued earlier this year by José Manuel Barroso, the former president of the Commission. But 18 are being withdrawn because the Commission has deemed that no agreement is possible between member states themselves, or between member states and MEPs. These include a directive on the tax of motor vehicles moved to another state, a decision on the financing of nuclear power stations, a directive on rates of excise duty on alcohol and a directive on medicinal prices.

A proposed fund for compensation of oil pollution damage in European waters is listed for withdrawl because “the impact assessment and relevent analysis are now out of date”.

A proposed directive on taxation of energy products and electricity is listed for withdrawal because “Council negotiations have resulted in a draft compromise text that has fully denatured the substance of the Commission proposal”. Timmermans indicated last month that Juncker’s Commission will be more aggressive about vetoing proposals if it thinks they have changed substantially during the legislative process.

The Commission can expect pushback from MEPs on the deregulation effort. Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, wrote to Juncker earlier this week warning that while the Parliament takes on board the idea of “political discontinuity” between this Commission and its predecessor, “the Commission would need to act carefully in its application, specifically with respect to the possible withdrawal of legislative proposals.”

Rebecca Harms, the leader of the Green group in the European Parliament, said today that “it would be scandalous if the first major act of the new Juncker Commission on sustainability, health and the environment would be to scrap these flagship proposals on air quality and the ‘circular economy’.”

“Axing crucial environmental legislation is not ‘better regulation’ it is an ideologically-biased sop to polluting industry lobbies, which is totally at odds with the public interest,” she added.

At the same time, Juncker is under general pressure to reduce EU bureaucracy, particularly from member states such as the UK. Syed Kamall, a British Conservative MEP who heads the Parliaments European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, said that the work programme is on the right track. “Mr Timmermans is right to take an axe to legislation, particularly where it is clear that the proposals are redundant, or where political agreement is next to impossible in the foreseeable future,” he said.

“However, Mr Timmermans should rethink withdrawing proposals such as the air quality package where there is agreement amongst all groups in the parliament,” he added. “This legislation, if balanced correctly, would actually improve on old legislation that was badly drafted in the first place, so it deserves a chance.”

New proposals for 2015

The draft identifies ten areas of focus for 2015:

• A new boost for jobs, growth and investment
• A connected digital single market
• A resilient energy union with a forward-looking climate change policy
• A deeper and fairer internal market with a strengthened industrial base
• A deeper and fairer economic and monetary union
• A reasonable and balanced free trade agreement with the United States
• An area of justice and fundamental rights based on mutual trust
• Working towards a new policy on migration
• A stronger global actor
• A union of democratic change

There are 23 initiatives planned for 2015 under these headings. These include Juncker’s investment plan, a digital single market package, an energy union communication, a labour mobility package, a capital markets action plan, and a communication on a “renewed approach for corporate taxation in the single market in the light of global developments”.

The Commission is also planning to put forward an agenda on migration and a review of the EU’s decision-making process on genetically-modified crops.