For nearly three decades, the European Commission has been pursuing the so-called Better Regulation agenda. At present, however, we are entering an era in which simplification is being given priority over essential protections, with a growing risk that key labour and environmental standards — which help ensure protection for workers and the environment worldwide — will be weakened or dismantled. While originally intended to simplify complex legislation, the agenda has been increasingly shifted towards serving business interests. Under President Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission, this shift has accelerated: regulations are now routinely portrayed as burdensome, especially when they entail costs for companies. In early 2025, the Commission introduced the “Omnibus” package to simplify EU rules and boost competitiveness. This includes an at least 25% reduction of administrative burdens and reporting obligations for companies and 35% for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as the suspension of several legislative initiatives such as due diligence, corporate sustainability reporting, and EU taxonomy. After analysing these policies, this policy brief issues an urgent call for a rebalancing of the Better Regulation agenda to safeguard core social and environmental protections against an increasingly one-sided push for deregulation.