Debate: Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence
Date: WEDNESDAY, 31 MAY 2023
Speaker: Didier Reynders
Language: FR

La Commission se félicite du travail de la commission JURI, ainsi que de l’intérêt du Parlement européen pour la proposition législative présentée par la Commission en février 2022, qui constitue une priorité politique commune. Je souhaite en particulier remercier la rapporteure, Mme Lara Wolters, ainsi que les rapporteurs fictifs dans ce dossier. Nous avons eu l’occasion d’échanger à de nombreuses reprises tout au long du processus, dans une atmosphère particulièrement constructive. Nous partageons l’ambition d’une action législative horizontale au niveau européen, afin de mettre en œuvre, concrètement, les engagements de l’Union en faveur d’une transition vers une économie plus juste et plus durable dans le domaine du droit des sociétés.  You will vote tomorrow on a proposal that represents a unique opportunity for the Union. This legislation can have an important impact on the way companies operate globally. It can lead to the development of new, more sustainable business models by large companies operating in the European Union market. Many stakeholders are asking for this: consumers, investors, employees and the wider public, as well as many companies themselves. Indeed, this is an initiative where we want companies to be on board. We are ready to continue to work together with them to make due diligence a reality on the ground. In order to achieve our goals, we proposed harmonised and mandatory rules on corporate due diligence and directors’ duties. Existing international recommendations and voluntary schemes have played an important role so far, but they have not been sufficient to lead to the necessary changes and to ensure a level playing field throughout the whole economy. With this proposal, we can indeed offer legal certainty and a level playing field for companies across the European Union, support for SMEs, better access to finance and guidance to facilitate the transition. This proposal aims to support companies in running their business in a way that effectively addresses possible negative impacts on human rights and the environment throughout their value chains. A review of more than 2 000 studies shows that integrating human rights and environmental protection into business operations leads to competitive advantages in all sectors of the economy and to more innovation. So, our main objective is to ensure that long—term perspectives and sustainability factors are better integrated in corporate strategies and decision making. Therefore, in our view, a clarification of the directors’ duty of care is also useful. The duty of care of directors is already present in all the legal systems of all Member States. The Commission’s proposal does not set a new duty of care, but only clarifies duties already present in national law to make sure that directors are empowered to act also with regard to the long term. It is important to make sure that sustainability considerations are taken into account in the major decisions of large companies. The proposal does not change the existing enforcement regime in this regard. Only shareholders would be able to hold directors to account. As regards climate change, in our proposal, we provided for a special regime that would require large companies to adopt a climate transition plan to ensure that their business model and strategy are compatible with the objective to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees in line with the Paris Agreement. The Commission changed to be covered by the whole due diligence regime. And of course the Commission did not propose, sorry, to change to be covered by the whole due diligence regime. So there are two systems, one with the due diligence process for harm to the environment and violation of human rights and a transition plan for climate. Ladies and gentlemen, the Commission proposed that the new rules apply only to large companies which have the capacity to implement the measures needed and notably to scrutinise their value chains. SMEs don’t fall under the scope of the proposed directive and would therefore be excluded from the administrative and civil-liability regimes contemplated in terms of enforcement. To limit the impact of this proposal on SMEs across value chains, the Commission also proposed to provide them with technical and financial support, notably, SMEs should benefit from specific guidance and tools. In a nutshell, our approach when designing the proposal has therefore been guided by the need to ensure proportionality, being mindful of impacts on competitiveness, while at the same time ensuring that we trigger a solid change on more sustainable value chains. I would like to conclude by praising again your work and commitment on this file. With this report, we are making further progress in this important field. It is a good indicator that we should be able to reach a final agreement soon. I am now looking forward to the upcoming trilogues. I thank you, of course, for your attention and if it’s possible to go further tomorrow we will start very fast the trilogue. But before that I will now listen with interest to your interventions.