March 15 2024 – Today, EU ambassadors voted to support the long-overdue Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). The law is designed to defend human rights, fight the climate crisis, and protect the environment from exploitation by European corporations.
The positive COREPER decision is a welcome recognition of the widespread and longstanding support for the law by EU citizens, civil society, trade unions, national governments, as well as the countless people who have suffered the impact of reckless European corporations violating human rights and destroying the climate.
But the fact that multiple member states and corporate lobbyists dragged out negotiations and almost rejected the whole file at the last stage, is a reflection of how big business is using its close links with EU decision makers to dismantle the law as much as they could. Last-minute political manoeuvres by France, Germany and other Member States and business lobbies further watered down a political agreement that already fell short of providing justice to victims of corporate abuses and obliging companies to drastically cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
Paul de Clerck, Economic Justice Campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, said:
“EU Member States have finally lifted the roadblock on European Due Diligence. We welcome it – but it is far from being good enough. Victims of corporate abuse still face many obstacles to justice and access to European courts. Companies still don’t have enforceable climate emission reduction obligations. EU policymakers can’t let momentum drop now. National governments now need to use CSDDD as a springboard for European leadership in defending justice over profit.”
The CSDDD file now enters the European Parliament for a vote during the upcoming Plenary.
