EU Warns 20 Member States Over Delays in Anti-Greenwashing Rules

The European Commission has launched infringement procedures against 20 member states for failing to fully implement new anti-greenwashing rules designed to strengthen consumer protection and improve the credibility of environmental claims. The action marks a significant step in the EU’s efforts to combat misleading sustainability marketing across the bloc.

Letters of formal notice were sent to Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland and Sweden. The countries had until 27 March 2026 to transpose the Directive on Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition into national law.

The directive aims to prevent vague, misleading or unsubstantiated environmental claims and sustainability labels, helping consumers make more informed purchasing decisions. It forms part of the EU’s broader strategy to tackle greenwashing and promote transparency in sustainability-related communications.

Member states have been given two months to respond and notify the Commission of their compliance measures. If the Commission considers the responses inadequate, it may escalate the cases through reasoned opinions and, ultimately, referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union.

The rules are scheduled to begin applying across the EU from 27 September 2026, strengthening requirements for environmental claims and sustainability labels in consumer markets.

Infringement procedures against 20 member states over Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive transposition delays combined with 27 September 2026 application deadline captures the enforcement architecture that the EU is prepared to deploy on greenwashing rules. Two-month response window plus reasoned-opinion and CJEU-referral escalation pathway signals serious enforcement intent.

The consumer-protection framing is analytically important. Greenwashing regulation frequently gets characterised as narrow marketing-compliance matter; the reality is that misleading environmental claims distort consumer choice at scale, undermining sustainable-product market functioning. Enforcement architecture that reaches beyond individual claim challenges to systematic member-state-level implementation shapes the practical consumer-protection reality.

For consumer-goods brands, retailers, financial-services companies and their marketing and CSR partners across EU markets, Cognitud's ESG strategy and transformation, sustainability due diligence and impact assessment teams help clients evaluate exposure to greenwashing regulation across member-state implementation variance, structure claim-substantiation frameworks aligned with directive principles, and prepare disclosures aligned with CSRD, ISSB and jurisdictional sustainability-claim frameworks.