The right and far right joined forces in the European Parliament on November 13, voting to weaken European Union corporate accountability rules and striking a blow to workers’ rights, climate goals, and human rights protections. “In what may yet go down in history as an infamous turning point for Europe, the European Parliament today voted to roll back measures to hold companies accountable for human rights and environmental abuses in their supply chains,” the left group stated after the vote.
With the Commission’s competitiveness and simplification agenda in mind, MEPs endorsed changes that will weaken the bloc’s corporate accountability regime. They did so by diluting directives that require companies to prevent human right abuses and environmental harm, and publicly reporting their environmental, social, and governance impacts. Progressives warn that such dilution will allow companies to avoid responsibility for subsidiaries’ infringement of human rights and harmful environmental practices, among other things.
Belgian MEP Marc Botenga, of the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA), called the outcome “a disgrace”, warning that right-wing and far-right parties had effectively decided that “multinational corporations must be able to exploit workers and ravage the environment with complete impunity.”
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“Under the guise of simplification, due diligence is being weakened, and a gift is being given to multinationals at the expense of workers and the environment,” said Arash Saeidi of France Unbowed (La France Insoumise). “The message sent to EU citizens and workers is clear: their rights come second to profits.”
The left group added that the final version of the text “could have been written by the lobbies themselves”, joining a wave of criticism of the European People’s Party (EPP), the Parliament’s mainstream right-wing bloc and currently the largest in the assembly, for accepting support from far-right groups to see the changes through.
Meanwhile, far-right parties, including France’s National Rally, applauded the result. “Today’s vote endorsed the National Rally’s approach, which aimed for the greatest possible simplification, in order to give our companies more breathing room and flexibility,” the party stated on social media. It added that the changes would “free most companies from disconnected constraints harmful to their competitiveness.”
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Left-wing parties also sounded the alarm over the growing cooperation between mainstream conservatives and the far right across the continent. In the light of this, they urged social democrats and other liberal groups to stop enabling the EPP’s agenda by supporting parts of its legislative packages. “The EPP uses them whenever it suits them, but never hesitates to turn its back on them in order to ally with the far right whenever the opportunity arises,” France Unbowed said. “By playing along, they make themselves complicit in severe social and environmental regressions, without ever gaining anything in return.”
Progressive forces argue that instead of dismantling protections, the European Union should be building a different path for itself, centered on workers’ rights, social justice, and peace, rather than on the militarization and armament agenda imposed by the United States and endorsed by the regional right-wing movement.
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