A bolder, simpler, faster Union: the 2025 Commission work programme

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission.

The Commission has adopted its 2025 work programme, outlining its ambition to boost competitiveness, enhance security, and bolster economic resilience in the EU. It builds on the commitments set out in the Political Guidelines and the mission letters sent by President von der Leyen.

The work programme focuses on the flagship initiatives the Commission will take in the first year of its mandate, responding to the issues that matter most to Europeans. It reflects the need for more opportunities, innovation, and growth for our citizens and businesses, ultimately fostering a more secure and prosperous EU. The newly proposed initiatives are laid out in a dedicated annex together with the evaluations and fitness checks announced today.

A Communication on Implementation and Simplification accompanies the work programme. It sets out how the Commission plans, over the next five years, to make implementation of EU rules easier in practice, and to reduce administrative burdens and simplify EU rules. It contains targets and tools to help lighten the regulatory load, boost competitiveness and resilience, and deliver fast and meaningful improvements for people and businesses.

A strategic implementation and simplification agenda

The 2025 work programme focuses strongly on simplification. It includes a first series of Omnibus packages and proposals designed to make EU policies and laws work better and faster to strengthen the EU’s competitiveness.

The first Omnibus will put forward far-reaching simplification, notably in the fields of sustainable finance reporting, sustainability due diligence and taxonomy. Other initiatives, like the Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act, will streamline permit granting, authorisations and reporting requirements. A new definition of small mid-caps will lighten the regulatory load so that SMEs face less obstacles when they grow bigger.

Simplification measures concerning the Common Agriculture Policy and other policy areas affecting farmers will further address sources of complexity and excessive administrative burden for national administrations and farmers. Further simplification proposals will be explored, including a possible omnibus in the area of defence to help reach the investment goals that will be set out in the White Paper, and to allow innovative companies to flourish.

Moving forward together: the key deliverables of the 2025 Commission work programme

• Sustainable Prosperity and Competitiveness: The newly launched Competitiveness Compass will guide sustainable growth efforts, with the EU Start-up and Scale-up Strategy empowering entrepreneurs through better access to capital. At the heart of the collaborative plan for decarbonisation and competitiveness is the Clean Industrial Deal, which will pave the way towards a proposed 90% emission-reduction target for 2040.
• Defence and Security: Amid tensions in the geopolitical landscape, the EU is intensifying efforts to safeguard security and ensure peace, unveiling plans to build a robust future for European Defence. By investing collectively and strategically with NATO’s cooperation,the EUaims to reinforce its defence industry and reduce dependencies. The Preparedness Union Strategy will enhance crisis anticipation and resilience, reinforced by initiatives like the EU Stockpiling strategy and the Critical Medicines Act to secure key resources.
• Supporting people, strengthening our societies and our social model: Aiming to cement Europe’s unique and highly treasured social model and to strengthen social fairness, the Commission will spearhead efforts to modernise social policies through the New Action Plan on the European Pillar of Social Rights. Aiming to adapt to technological, demographic, and sectoral transformations the Commission will present the Union of Skills to ensure that all workers have the education and training they need.
• Sustaining our quality of life: The Commission will present a Vision for Agriculture and Food to ensure a stable framework for farmers and outline a roadmap for key proposals. The Ocean Pact will create a unified framework for ocean policies, aiming to preserve ocean health and boost the EU blue economy. Additionally, the European Water Resilience Strategy will adopt a source-to-sea approach to manage water resources effectively, addressing climate change impacts like floods and droughts. A simplification package of the Common Agriculture Policy will address sources of complexity and administrative burden for farmers and national administrations.
• Protecting democracy and upholding values: Initiatives like the Democracy Shield will tackle threats like rising extremism and disinformation. The Commission also plans to enhance strategies to combat discrimination based on gender, disability, sexual orientation, or race, including a renewed LGBTIQ Equality strategy and a new Anti-racism strategy.
• A global Europe: leveraging our power and partnerships: Whilst working for Ukraine’s freedom remains a priority, the EU is committed to a just, comprehensive and lasting peace based on the two-state solution in the Middle East. A Mediterranean Pact and Black Sea strategy will focus on regional cooperation, economic investment, and security, and a new Strategic EU-India agenda will provide a comprehensive approach to pinpoint areas of common strategic interest.
• Delivering together and preparing our Union for the future: The Commission plans to present a new Multiannual Financial Framework focused on simplifying access to EU funding and enhancing financial impact to support national, private, and institutional financing. Additionally, a focus on pre-enlargement policy reviews will further assess the consequences and impacts of enlargement on all EU policies guaranteeing that our policies can continue delivering effectively in a larger Union.

Background

Every year, the Commission adopts a work programme setting out the list of actions it will take in the following year. Since the new College started work on 1 December 2024, the Commission work programme for the first year of the new mandate was adopted on 11 February 2025.

The work programme informs the public and the co-legislators of our political commitments to present new initiatives, including simplification proposals, withdraw pending proposals and review existing EU legislation. The work programme is the result of close cooperation with the European Parliament, Member States and the EU consultative bodies.

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