10 November 2025 – In an interview over the weekend, Manfred Weber, head of the European People’s Party, said: “As the leader of the largest party, I am determined: we must smash bureaucracy with a crowbar.” We therefore ask: In light of CSDDD, EUDR, CSRD, WSR, PPWR, DPP, CBAM, and steel tariffs – have you really heard the shot, Mr. Weber, or have you already drowned in the red tape?
EU Powerless – Has Manfred Weber Really Heard the Shot?
Over the weekend, Manfred Weber, Member of the European Parliament and Chairman of the European People’s Party, said in an interview with the German newspaper Bild: “As the leader of the largest party, I am determined: we must smash bureaucracy with a crowbar. The first symbolic issue is on next Thursday’s agenda: the vote on the supply chain law. My clear intention: we must completely exempt the European SME sector from this legislation. And I am urging other parties to send this signal to the business community: we have heard the shot.”
It may sound appealing, what Mr. Weber said in that interview, but it also distracts from the fact that even this single project had already failed spectacularly in October, despite an earlier cross-party agreement that should have secured a majority.
There’s a lot more coming than the Supply Chain Law, Mr. Weber
And the Supply Chain Law is only one of many EU regulations that will hit small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Europe in the coming weeks, months, and years – many of them involving substantial and costly bureaucratic burdens.
Alongside the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), there is also the Regulation on Deforestation-free Products (EUDR), Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the new Waste Shipments Regulation (WSR), the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), the Digital Product Passport (DPP), and of course the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) – plus the newly proposed tariffs on steel imports into the EU.
Stopping a flood of bureaucracy with a crowbar?
Whether Mr. Weber can actually stop this flood of bureaucracy with the crowbar he mentioned is highly questionable. At present, it seems far more likely that MEPs have become entangled in the red tape of the Commission’s regulatory obsession, while one omnibus regulation after another thunders past – each leaving behind new layers of bureaucracy instead of relief.
That SME issues are not exactly high on Mr. Weber’s agenda is also evident from the company he keeps. And whether businesses, often only brought along as subsidiaries or appendages to discussions, are actually allowed to speak for themselves is another matter entirely.
The unity Mr. Weber invokes with reference to the euro and the single market is overshadowed by trade barriers within the EU’s own internal market – equivalent to tariffs of up to 45%. And with the Packaging Regulation (PPWR), the EU piles yet more bureaucracy and trade barriers onto small and medium-sized enterprises.
EU and Member States already overwhelmed by CBAM
CBAM provides the best example. Even the Commission itself is no longer able to get its carbon tariff under control, and with less than two months before launch, nothing is ready. Meanwhile, through the proposed steel tariffs and import quota reductions, the EU seems to be launching a covert attack on internationally recognized rules of origin – a move that will present enormous challenges not only for European companies but also for customs authorities.
The fact that national authorities are already failing to manage CBAM can be seen in Germany, where the handling of highly sensitive tax data had to be outsourced to a subcontractor.
Press only sympathetic to big corporations?
We also ask: Why are SME issues, the very topics affecting the engine of the EU economy, being completely ignored by the press? Has the media become nothing more than a compliant mouthpiece for politics?
“Mr. Weber has not heard the shot on CBAM and steel tariffs!”
While Mr. Weber believes he has “heard the shot,” Thorsten Gerber, CEO of the Gerber Group, said today:
“Sorry, Mr. Weber, you haven’t heard or understood the shot at all!” He continued: “If you had, you would have completely rejected both CBAM and the steel tariffs proposed by Commissioners Séjourné and Šefčovič for small and medium-sized enterprises – long before either of them ever saw the light of day.”
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