22.01.2024
The planned EU Corporate Sustainabilty Due Diligence Directive would overburden SMEs in particular and lead to European companies withdrawing from many countries. Eight major business organisations are therefore calling on politicians to stop this directive now and work together to introduce better regulation to safeguard human rights.
In a joint letter to the German government, the EU Council Presidency and other European decision-makers, the business organisations BGA, Gesamtmetall, Mittelstandsverbund - ZGV, Stiftung Familienunternehmen und Politik, textil+mode, VCI, VDMA and ZVEI call for the EU Corporate Sustainabilty Due Diligence Directive to be stopped. The vote of the ambassadors in the Permanent Representatives Committee and then the vote of the Council of the EU Member States is due shortly. "The requirements of the German Supply Chain Act have already led to small and medium-sized companies being completely overwhelmed by the burdens within their supply relationships. An EU due diligence directive, as now planned, would result in a new dimension of bureaucratic overload and legal uncertainty," the associations warn. The directive would make foreign trade more difficult and would be at the expense of European jobs and value creation.