The Council of the EU has adopted two regulations to limit respectively fluorinated gases (f-gases) and ozone-depleting substances (ODS), which currently represent over 3% of the EU's total greenhouse gas. This follows their adoptions by the European Parliament on 16 January 2024. The two regulations will now be signed by the Council and Parliament. They will then be published in the Official Journal of the EU and enter into force 20 days later.

The Council of the EU has adopted the revised Industrial Emission Directive (IED) and the Regulation on reporting of environmental data from industrial installations, establishing an Industrial Emissions Portal (IEP), which will monitor and regulate the environmental effect of industrial activities. These new rules offer improved protection of human health and the environment by decreasing harmful emissions from industrial installations, while advancing energy efficiency, a circular economy and decarbonisation. The Directive will be published in the Official Journal of the EU (OJEU) and will come into force 20 days following its publication. EU Member States will then have up to 22 months to transpose the provisions of the Directive into their national legislation. The European Commission will consider the emerging techniques and review and assess the implementation of the Directive in 2028 and every five years thereafter. From 2028, the Regulation on the new IEP will become binding and directly applicable in all Member States, after its publication in the OJEU.

The Council of the EU has adopted a revision of the Single Permit Directive, which updates the current Single Permit Directive (Directive 2011/98/EU) which dates back to 2011. The new Directive aims to attract skills and talent the EU requires and addresses shortcomings regarding legal migration to the EU. The Directive focuses on the administrative procedure for a single permit for both the right to work and the right to stay in the EU, and establishes a common set of rights for third-country workers. It also has a shorter application procedure and aims to strengthen the rights of third-country workers by allowing a change of employer and a limited period of unemployment. The Directive will now be published in the Official Journal of the EU and will come into force 20 days following its publication. EU Member states will then have two years to transpose the Directive into national law.

The Council of the EU has formally adopted the Regulation on CO2 emission standards for heavy-duty vehicles, on 13 May 2024. Through amending and strengthening the existing EU rules, it aims to further reduce CO2 emissions from road transport, introducing new targets for 2030, 2035 and 2040, aiming to help increase the share of zero-emission vehicles in the heavy-duty vehicle fleet across the EU, while ensuring that innovation in and the competitiveness of the sector are preserved and enhanced. Almost all new heavy-duty vehicles with certified CO2 emissions, including smaller trucks, urban buses, coaches and trailers, will be subject to emission reduction targets.

The Council of the European Union has formally adopted a directive updating the list of pollutants affecting surface water and groundwater, including pesticides, pharmaceuticals and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The directive amends the water framework directive, the groundwater directive and the directive on environmental quality standards, expands the EU-wide list of dangerous substances, tightens environmental quality standards for several pollutants and strengthens monitoring and reporting across the EU. It also aligns EU water policy with the latest scientific evidence and introduces, rules to assess the cumulative risk of chemical mixtures. Microplastics and antimicrobial resistance indicators have been added to the EU’s water watchlists to support future reviews.

The Council of the European Union has announced that it has formally adopted two new directives aimed at strengthening the powers of equality bodies throughout the EU. Existing EU legislation stipulates that all Member States must establish national equality bodies to deal with cases of discrimination on the grounds of sex, and racial or ethnic origin. However it provides Member States with a wide discretion over the competences, independence, resources, accessibility and effectiveness of these bodies. The new proposals will establish minimum requirements for all Member States in these areas.

The Council of the European Union has adopted a new Schengen Borders Code, the EU’s rules dealing with the management of internal and external borders and border control of persons crossing the external EU borders. Noteworthy provisions include the possibility for the Council to implement harmonised temporary travel restrictions at the EU's external borders such as in the event of large-scale health emergency. Members States will also have the right to limit the number of border crossing points or reduce their opening hours, and enhance border surveillance measures. Moreover, a new transfer procedure will allow Member States, in the context of a bilateral cooperation framework, to transfer third-country nationals apprehended in the border area and staying illegally in its territory to the Member State from which they arrived directly. This Regulation will enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the EU and is directly applicable in Member States.

The Council of the EU has adopted a Regulation amending the Central Securities Depositories Regulation (Regulation (EU) 909/2014) (CSDR), to introduce a shorter settlement cycle for securities transactions. The updated rule requires that transactions in transferable securities executed on trading venues be settled no later than one business day after the trade date (T+1), replacing the previous T+2 standard.

The Council of the EU and European Parliament negotiators reached provisional agreement on a directive harmonising insolvency law across EU member states. The directive establishes common rules on avoidance actions, asset tracing through bank account registers, mandatory pre-pack proceedings, directors' duties to file within three months of financial distress and creditors' committees. Member states have two years and nine months to transpose the directive into national law, replacing the current system where cross-border investors must navigate up to 27 different national insolvency regimes.

The Council of the European Union has agreed its general approach on the European grids package. Proposed by the European Commission in December 2025, the package comprises a proposal for the revision of Regulation EU/2022/869 (the Trans-European Networks for Energy (TEN-E) Regulation) and a proposed permitting directive. It is intended to modernise and expand the EU’s energy infrastructure to accelerate electrification and decarbonisation. The Council of the EU’s position focuses on improving cross-border energy infrastructure planning, streamlining and accelerating permit-granting procedures and strengthening the security and resilience of the energy network. The Council will begin negotiations with the European Parliament once Parliament has adopted its position, with a view to reaching a final agreement on the legislation as soon as possible in 2026.

The Council of the European Union has agreed its general approach on strengthening the EU carbon border adjustment mechanism (EU CBAM), ahead of negotiations with the European Parliament. In its agreed position, the Council of the EU has refined the list of new downstream products to which EU CBAM would apply and mandates the European Commission to conduct annual reviews of further downstream products for potential inclusion. In relation to anti-circumvention, the Council of the EU largely agrees with the Commission’s December 2025 proposal, which would introduce new measures bringing pre-consumer metal scrap within the scope of EU CBAM and empowering the Commission to act where deceptive practices by high-risk companies are detected during reporting. The Council of the EU’s position also defines more precisely the mechanism for temporarily exempting goods from the EU CBAM framework in cases of serious and unforeseen circumstances, requiring any such exemption to be based on clear and objective criteria, including EU exposure to severe price increases. Trilogue negotiations are expected to commence following the European Parliament’s adoption of its own position, with a view to reaching agreement before the end of 2026.

The Council of the EU has reached an agreement on its position on the 2025 EU draft budget. In total, the Council's position for the 2025 budget amounts to €191.53bn in commitments and €146.21bn in payments. The Council stresses the importance for the budget to continue showing the EU’s solidarity with Ukraine and to respond to the related crises. The Council considers that the budget should be realistic, in line with actual needs, ensure prudent budgeting and leave sufficient margins under the multiannual financial framework (MFF) ceilings to deal with unforeseen circumstances and address the EU’s challenges, while providing enough resources to ensure the implementation of the EU’s policies and programmes and to allow commitments already made to be paid in due time. The Council welcomes that the draft budget is aligned with the outcome of the agreement on the revision of the EU’s multiannual financial framework (MFF 2021–2027). The Council aims to formally adopt its position through a written procedure ending on 13 September 2024. Its position will serve as a mandate for the Hungarian presidency of the Council to negotiate the budget with the European Parliament. The legal deadline for reaching agreement on the annual budget is 18 November 2024 at midnight.