“By affirming that Europe would be penalized by its level of ethical requirement, Emmanuel Macron reactivates an outdated vision” | EUROtoday

Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now.

HASWhen the date of software of the European Directive on the Duty of Vigilance (CSDDD) has already been rejected at 2028 by the European Union, President Emmanuel Macron introduced, through the Choose France summit on May 19, wishing its outright suppression. He joined the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, in a posture as brutal as it’s incomprehensible. Brutal, as a result of it assaults a textual content of compromise carried out democratically by the European establishments, the fruit of lengthy negotiations; incomprehensible, as a result of it sweeps a strategic imaginative and prescient for a extra accountable Europe.

Read additionally | Article reserved for our subscribers Business duty: “Europe must demonstrate firmness and enhance global standards in sustainability”

However, this directive had already been significantly watered down in latest months. In April, the European Parliament adopted the so-called “Omnibus” directive, which goals to reduce sure key laws of the inexperienced pact, together with the CSDDD. Presented as a “Simplification” Faced with pressures of financial and political backgrounds, this reform hides an actual legislative decline, denounced by quite a few civil society organizations.

By calling for the entire abandonment of the directive, the French president crosses a milestone: that of the renunciation of the enterprise accountability motion, which her majority herself launched with the 2019 pact regulation. By preferring the return to the dogma of grey development to that of the inexperienced development he had promoted, he goes towards the historical past by weakening the capability of Europe to claim his normative sovereignty deregulated.

Liberal logic

Adopted in April 2024, after 4 years of legislative work and collective mobilization, the CSDD imposed on massive corporations working within the European Union to determine, forestall and alleviate human rights and environmental harm throughout their international worth chains. It extends the pioneering motion launched in France with the 2017 regulation on the obligation of vigilance, by extending it to a European scale with a purpose to guarantee honest competitors circumstances and to supply a transparent authorized framework. Its adoption had marked a historic turning level: for the primary time, Europe affirmed a regulated globalization, based mostly on elementary rights, social justice and the ecological transition. Until then, no multisectoral laws fully coated the duty of corporations for violations dedicated of their world provide chains.

You have 55.16% of this text to learn. The relaxation is reserved for subscribers.

https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/05/24/en-affirmant-que-l-europe-serait-penalisee-par-son-niveau-d-exigence-ethique-emmanuel-macron-reactive-une-vision-depassee_6608190_3232.html