The European Parliament, meeting in plenary session, is set to vote on Wednesday 10 March on a draft legislative own-initiative report by Lara Wolters (S&D, the Netherlands) on a mandatory EU-wide due diligence,which would require companies to detect, prevent and reduce the social and environmental impacts of their activities throughout their supply chains.
The vote on Tuesday 9 March on the 28 amendments tabled to the report broadly confirmed the general line adopted by the Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) at the end of January (see EUROPE 12645/4).
All eyes were on the series of amendments that had been tabled at the last minute in an attempt to exempt microenterprises and SMEs from due diligence.
The amendments in question, which came from the EPP group’s ‘SME circle’ and which had gathered around 50 signatures from the EPP and, to a lesser extent, from Renew Europe, were rejected in the end. According to our information, they were brought up against the will of the EPP negotiator on this dossier, Axel Voss (EPP, Germany).
In the debate preceding the vote on Monday 8 March, Ms Wolters had recalled that the draft text provided for obligations proportionate for SMEs, in particular by including in the scope of application only listed or high-risk SMEs.
“But exempting SMEs altogether flies in the face of our joint goals. A small company, too, can cause harm”, she said at the time, asking MEPs to vote against the amendments.
MEP Axel Voss had also moved in this direction by advocating an approach based on risk rather than size.
“It is only possible to support such a text if three conditions are met: – the due diligence should only apply to subcontractors and partners with whom the company has direct contact and not to the entire supply chain; – it must clearly be analysed as an obligation of means and in no case as an obligation of result; and – it should only weigh on large companies, because SMEs don’t have the means to exercise it”, stated Gilles Lebreton (Identity and Democracy, France).
None of the amendments tabled by the group Identity and Democracy, which were also mainly aimed at excluding SMEs from the scope of the future directive, was adopted, nor those of the ECR group which called for the inclusion of publicly funded NGOs in the scope.
The vote also confirmed the possibility—in the event of damage caused by a European company in a non-Member State—that European law be applied in the European courts.
Both amendments tabled to this effect by the S&D, Renew Europe, Greens/EFA and The Left groups in order to prevent companies from being able to choose the law that would be most favourable to them have indeed been adopted.
During the vote in the JURI Committee, the compromise reached between the political groups on this point had been rejected and, following a series of votes, the rapporteur’s original text was finally retained.
The EPP group was strongly opposed to this provision. According to our information, Mr Voss proposed to his group that they abstain rather than vote against. Some MEPs who are very much opposed to these amendments might now be tempted to vote against the final report.
It should be noted that the joint amendment by the EPP, S&D, Greens/EFA and Renew Europe groups, specifying that companies covered by the future directive should not pass on due diligence to suppliers,was also adopted.
In front of the press on Tuesday morning, Manon Aubry (The Left, France) had hoped that the amendments reducing the scope of the text and pushed, in her opinion, by organisations such as BusinessEurope, would all be rejected. In any case, the MEP was “confident” that the text would be adopted on Wednesday with a “healthy majority”. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana with Léa Marchal)