Long way to the supply chain law | time.news

by time news

In the next week, the environment committee of the EU Parliament will deal with the supply chain law. Whether it will be one with teeth remains to be seen.

The next stage is a compromise proposal for an EU directive that should ensure the responsibilities of companies along the supply chain. An important preliminary decision is made here, but it remains to be seen how strict the regulation will be.

The regulation is intended to make trade and industry responsible in order to avoid violations of human rights, animal welfare and environmental protection. This obligation should not only apply to a company in the EU, but also to all supplier companies – along the value chain. In the event of violations, the company should be held accountable. So much for the EU’s approach.

It remains to be seen how consistently it will be put into practice. In a draft that has now been made public, there is still hope in this regard: in the text, which is to be decided next week in the environment committee of the EU Parliament, there is now a reference to the goals of the Paris climate conference in December 2015 explicitly mentioned – and thus the commitment to the goal of keeping the warming of the atmosphere at 1.5 degrees Celsius (and in any case well below two degrees). In order to ensure this, the companies not only have to raise and reduce risks themselves, but also do the same for all supplier companies.

A paper is now being presented to the Committee on the Environment in which it is still fundamentally possible for the spirit of the directive to be retained. The committee paper contains the limit values ​​from which the regulations should take effect: both in general and for specific risk sectors (e.g. mining), companies with more than 250 employees and an annual turnover of more than 40 million euros should be obliged – not only manufacturers, but also trade.

At a press conference in Vienna, Anna Leitner, who is responsible for resource issues at the environmental organization, warns against installing loopholes that allow the member countries a wide scope for interpretation in the formulations. “We are currently seeing this in France, where unclear provisions of a similar law delegate decisions to the court level.”

Decisive: statute of limitations and costs

This is where the Viennese environmental and human rights lawyer Michaela Krömer intervenes. She believes that even very severe penalties (such as those in the General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR) may not have any effect in practice if there is a failure to make the conduct of proceedings also possible. “The statute of limitations and the risk of costs are decisive, especially at the level of civil law.”

Krömer advocates longer limitation periods. And on the other hand, it is important that civil society organizations and, above all, individuals do not bear any cost risk. In civil litigation, it is normal for plaintiffs to pay the other party’s litigation costs if the suit is dismissed.

In the case of violations of supply chain laws, the lawsuit opponents are often corporations, for which it is no problem to drag out proceedings, for example with expert opinions – and thus to push the pain limits of the financial resilience of plaintiffs to the limit. Krömer: “It will be important in the guidelines whether there are reasonable regulations in these points.”

The discussion in the Environment Committee is far from the last step in the negotiations. The Legal Committee, which will probably deal with the sanction options at the end of March, is of crucial importance. Finally, the main committee also becomes important; the die will then be cast in the trialogue, which can be expected in the autumn.

You may also like

Leave a Comment