The European Green Party has said that the decision of the European People’s Party (EPP) to align itself with far-right groups in a vote to scale back the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), is “politically irresponsible, morally indefensible, and destructive to the European project itself”.
Vula Tsetsi, co-chair of the European Green Party, was commenting following the EPP’s decision to support amendments to the CSDDD that considerably raise the thresholds for compliance.
Under the revised legislation, only firms with more than 5,000 employees and annual turnover exceeding €1.5 billion would be required to implement due diligence processes.
‘A grave historial error’
“European People’s Party leader Manfred Weber made a grave historical error by crossing the historical firewall against the far right,” Tsetsi commented. “I cannot imagine that the millions of people who voted for parties belonging to the EPP political family agree with the far-right path that Weber is dragging the EPP down.”
Ciaran Cuffe, fellow co-chair of the European Green Party, accused the EPP of “dismantling vital rules which protect people, our health and environment. This is shameful. Those rules exist to protect the rights of consumers in the EU, and to make sure that the rights of people working in the supply chain are being respected. […] It is a move in the wrong direction.”
‘Echoes of Trump’
Elsewhere, the European Coalition for Corporate Justice has said that the EPP’s move ‘pleases corporate interests’, and ‘echoes the Trump administration’s attacks on the EU’s sustainability rules’.
“This isn’t just another policy setback, it’s a betrayal of Europe’s social and environmental commitments,” said Nele Meyer, director of the European Coalition for Corporate Justice. “When anti-EU parties and corporate lobbies write the rules, accountability dies and Europe’s credibility crumbles. Today’s vote shows how corporate capture and far-right politics now walk hand in hand, and it’s the victims, workers and the planet who pay the price.” Read more here and here.
