The Twenty-seven approve a reduced version of the law that will require large companies to have greater respect for human and environmental rights

It seems that only the States are going to claim victory this time.

After tough last-minute negotiations - on a text that had already been agreed - the Twenty-seven have given their approval this Friday to the European law that seeks to force large companies to better ensure respect for human rights and the environment throughout their supply chains.

But the regulations, which were already criticized as insufficient to protect, above all, minors from child exploitation, have been further reduced to obtain enough votes that will allow them to be ratified before the end of the current European legislature.

One of the biggest criticisms of the now negotiated text of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) is that it will affect a much smaller number of companies than initially planned and, also, than what was expected. agreed with the European Parliament last December: according to diplomatic sources, the new text, proposed by the Belgian rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, will now apply only to European companies with more than a thousand employees and a turnover of 450 million euros, when it was originally going to apply to companies that had more than 500 employees and a turnover of 150 million.

The mention that the law will apply to smaller companies that operate in sectors that are especially sensitive to environmental violations or child exploitation such as textiles, mining, agriculture (including fishing and logging) or construction, an extreme that had been especially celebrated by organizations defending human rights.

Something that is attempted to be alleviated with the creation of a review clause, the sources state.

According to calculations by WWF and the European Coalition for Corporate Justice, the new limits exclude up to 70% of the more than 16,000 companies to which the measure was originally intended, which has also been reduced in other environmental obligations.

Furthermore, the directive, which was blocked for several weeks due to reluctance from Germany, joined by France, Italy and other countries, will be applied in a first phase to only those companies with more than 5,000 employees, thus further delaying its impact.

The “haggling” of these countries will cost a “heavy price”, laments the legal association Client Earth: “Corporate lobbying and political games have murdered this opportunity to revolutionize the way of doing business in the EU and beyond by excluding the most of the companies in its field,” he warns.

Despite its strong reduction, the European Parliament rapporteur, Lara Wolters, has welcomed the Council's approval for a project “too important to fail”.

According to the Dutch social democrat, despite everything, the regulations “will have a great impact around the world by preventing companies from looking the other way in the face of very real misery and destruction.”

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