Today, the Council of the EU approved a watered-down version of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). It includes a severely reduced scope: Only about 0,05% of companies across the EU will be subject to the new law, a cut of roughly 2/3 - compared to the December trilogue outcome.
"The Belgian Presidency of the Council managed to save EU companies from having to comply with a patchwork of national laws and found agreement on a common EU response to exploitation in global value chains. However, the cuts introduced at the eleventh hour leave a bitter aftertaste: They will likely reduce the positive impacts on people working in the value chains of EU companies due to the reduced scope and throw into doubt the reliability and legitimacy of normal EU decision-making processes," says Julia Otten, Senior Policy Officer at Frank Bold.
Today's approval builds on four years of work done by the European Commission, European Parliament and by the Member States - alongside with the engagement from trade unions, civil society and businesses. As Frank Bold, we advocated for defining a level-playing-field on responsible corporate conduct for large companies in the EU and designing an effective EU response to the race to the bottom in global value chains.
It is now the turn of the European Parliament to take the high road and cast the definitive vote in favour of an agreement that, while imperfect, will contribute to fairer and more sustainable global value chains.
Frank Bold has recently become a certified B Corporation for its activities as a law firm. This new status reflects the firm’s general policy of combining its business activities with socially valuable objectives.
To support our advocacy work on concrete legislative proposals and recommendations, we collaborate with partners from the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia to prepare and publish reports, case studies, data analyses, and examples of international best practices.
To start the New Year with an interesting and thought-provoking event, Frank Bold and ClientEarth organised a screening of This Changes Everything, a documentary based on Naomi Klein’s international non-fiction bestseller.
