Technically, the Commission has only a few days left to finalise its legislative proposal to ban forced labour products from the internal market. The text is expected to be presented in Strasbourg following the European Commission President’s State of the Union speech in mid-September.
According to information gathered by EUROPE, the Commission is preparing to present a Regulation (see EUROPE 13001/8) which should propose a method to ban from the European market all goods produced, extracted or harvested by forced labourers.
According to two sources, the Commission has not planned to include services such as freight transport. For example, sea freight, which transports 90% of world trade, carries a high risk of labour exploitation, according to the human rights organisation Anti-slavery.
The legislation should focus on removing goods from the market rather than blocking them at EU borders, a source said.
Some industry representatives advocate such a method, which would avoid an import ban, and possible justifications before the World Trade Organization (WTO). Others, however, fear a complex process to trace and remove products from the European market.
A complaints-based system
Another key element is that the Commission appears to be relying on a complaints mechanism, according to a second source. This mechanism could allow civil society and trade unions to report suspected cases of forced labour.
The risk-based approach, which the Commission intends to adopt in a document seen by EUROPE (see EUROPE 13001/8), should make it possible to ban the products targeted by the complaints.
This system was promoted by the European Parliament in a resolution adopted in June (see EUROPE 12968/23). MEPs also call for a compensation mechanism to be created for victims of forced labour.
This request was reiterated by many NGOs in the call for contributions launched by the Commission in May. According to our second source, the Commission does not seem to have addressed this aspect in the drafting of the legislation.
In any case, the Commission is not copying word for word The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which came into force in June this year. It blacklists all goods from Xinjiang on the assumption that they have been manufactured using forced labour.
The products are thus blocked at the US border, unless the importer manages to rebut the presumption, something that happens very rarely, if ever, according to a source close to the matter.
The Commission’s proposal will come at an opportune moment, as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published on 31 August its report on human rights violations in China’s Xinjiang region, noting potential forced labour in Xinjiang’s internment camps (see EUROPE 13012/18). (Original version in French by Léa Marchal and Pascal Hansens)