Brussels, 05/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - The future legislation aimed at limiting the financing of military and armed groups in conflict areas (such as the Great Lakes region in the DRC and in Eastern Africa) through trade in tin, gold, tantalum and tungsten - the so-called conflict minerals legislation - remains in limbo as the priorities of the European Parliament and Council as still far apart on the nature of the system for monitoring the supply chain for these minerals.
The European Parliament wants a text which would force EU companies using these metals in the production of high technology goods (such as mobile phones and computers) to carry out checks in order to reduce the risk of their suppliers trading in conflict minerals.
However, the Council only wants voluntary checks which would be weaker than the international standards to which the member states have already signed up - the duty of diligence making companies responsible for monitoring and administering their purchases and sales of these minerals, in line with the five steps set out by the OECD in its guide on the duty of diligence.
The trialogue negotiations between the European Parliament, Council of the EU and European Commission on 1 February, on the draft legislation tabled by the Commission in March 2014, for which the MEPs decided in May 2015 not to close the first reading position (see EUROPE 11318), did not end well on Monday - with MEPs asking the Council to strengthen its draft legislation considerably.
“We found the Council's proposal very weak. Legislation that is much more binding is needed. Trade is not a licence to kill”, the Parliament negotiator, Marie Arena (S&D, Belgium), told EUROPE in an interview.
“The position of the European Parliament is clear. We want fair and responsible trade. That is why we defend a mandatory regulation that will be applied not only to raw materials, but also to manufactured products which we consume in Europe”, Arena stated. “Companies must be obliged to do their duty of diligence. They must ensure that they have set up a responsible supply chain. It's risk analysis”, she said.
The Council remains very far from this position, wanting a voluntary system that is only applicable to companies importing minerals and metals.
“The Council came with a proposal below what the Commission is proposing and it weakens the framework established by the OECD. This is tantamount to saying that such a regulation will only serve for having a clear conscience, without any real impact either on the ground or on the behaviour of companies”, Arena continued. “If the Council does not move their line, there will be no compromise with the Parliament. Doing that would be worse than doing nothing. The ball is in the Council's court”, she said.
In order to bring the positions closer together, the Commission has made an alternative proposal, a mid-way compromise, which suggests a binding system on the party upstream of the supply chain - the smelters and refiners, including raw minerals, plus base metal ores (the first transformation).
In the Commission's view, European companies, and especially SMEs, would not at this stage be able to identify all the steps in the chain, so to answer constraints such as those imposed by US companies as part of the US Dodd Franck Act of 2010. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)