Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) got to the heart of the matter on corporate responsibility on Monday 28 September by examining the two draft own-initiative reports on sustainable corporate governance and due diligence (see EUROPE 12552/15). An opportunity for each political group to put forward its priorities.
In general, the draft text on sustainable corporate governance (see EUROPE 12554/20), prepared by French MEP Pascal Durand (Renew Europe), was supported by most political groups.
The aim is to “ensure that we simply move from an obligation to say to an obligation to do” and to have “rules that are clear, that are the same for everyone and that are able to be monitored”, the rapporteur explained.
According to Marie Toussaint (Greens/EFA, France), first and foremost it will be necessary to find “a form of governance that takes global limits into account”. Two other aspects to which her group will pay particularly attention to will be shareholder remuneration and shareholding time.
Rather satisfied with the recommendations on the revision of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (see EUROPE 12430/22), Manon Aubry (GUE/NGL, France), for her part, felt that some avenues were missing from the report. This is particularly the case for the idea of having social and ecological quid pro quos for State Aid paid to companies, or, in terms of the dividend framework, a weighting of rights according to the length of time shares are held.
“Companies cannot be absolved of all social responsibility”, agreed Raffaele Stancanelli (ECR, Italy), adding that it was still important to look at the economic and social traditions of different countries in this process. He also expressed concern about the gender aspect of the report, pointing out that meritocracy should take precedence over gender alone.
French MEP Gilles Lebreton (Identity and Democracy), for his part, welcomed an interesting line of thought - perhaps over-ambitious - on “trying to moralise capitalism”, while stressing that if these obligations were only imposed on European companies without being imposed on non-European companies, this could lead to distortions of competition.
Due diligence
There seemed to be somewhat less consensus on the draft report prepared by Lara Wolters (S&D, Netherlands) on human rights and environmental due diligence in companies’ supply chains. The MEP chose a broad approach, which includes “all risks, all sectors and all European companies”, she summarised.
A draft that may be a little too ambitious in Axel Voss’ (EPP, Germany) view, for whom more legal clarity is still needed as to what criteria should be applied to companies and what should be done to avoid sanctions.
According to Jorge Buxadé Villalba (ECR, Spain), the draft report is “not going in the right direction” and risks “destroying the European entrepreneurial fabric”. In particular, he wants SMEs to be excluded from the scope.
The shadow rapporteurs will have the opportunity to discuss these aspects in more detail at their meeting on Tuesday 29 September. The political groups have until 6 October to table their amendments to the two draft reports. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)