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EU Parliament, Council agree to ban products made with forced labour (www.reuters.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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European Union Council and the European Parliament on Tuesday reached a provisional agreement to ban the entry of products made with forced labour into the European single market.

The agreement clarifies the different responsibilities the EU Commission and the member states in identifying the companies exploiting forced workers and banning their products.

The deal intends to break these companies' business model, Pierre-Yves Dermagne Belgium's Economy and Labour Minister said in a statement.

"With this regulation we want to make sure that there is no place for their products on our single market, whether they are manufactured in Europe or abroad," he said. Belgium currently holds the EU's rotating presidency.

The bans would be enforced on goods made outside the EU by forced labour and on products manufactured in the EU with parts made abroad by forced labour.

The provisional agreement still needs to be formally approved by the European Parliament and the Council to be enforced.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Not sure but IMO the key point is nearly reached with this:

The agreement clarifies the different responsibilities the EU Commission and the member states in identifying the companies exploiting forced workers and banning their products.

The biggest problem is transparency. You ask a chocolate maker about forced child labor in their supply chain, and they simply deny it. You ask who their supplier is and they remain silent. NGOs and journalists always have an uphill battle in just working out who is in the supply chain. But highly motivated investigative journalists will go to the Ivory coast, find the child slaves, and then somehow trace it upwards from there. Hopefully this law forces disclosures of the supply chain. Once the supply chain is public it’s probably trivial from there. But note they deliberately make the supply chain a lengthy change of many hands in order to thwart detection.

The article is somewhat useless in neglecting to say anything about supply chain transparency.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

... in neglecting to say anything about supply chain transparency.

Yes, this is the big issue here, and with Germany and Italy as the major drivers to prevent transparency rules at the EU level, I am moderately enthusiastic for the near future if I may say so. It's an important step in the right direction, though.

@gravitas_deficiency as it is already said, the new rules refer to forced labor in companies outside Europe such as China and other countries. The intention is that EU companies can be held accountable for human rights violations committed by their suppliers outside the EU.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Yeah let me say it loud and proud: fuck both parties in my home country Germany that voted against supply chain transparency.

Literally keeping the tradition of forced labor going. Absolutely disgusting.

Man sometimes I would love to swap every politician who makes such a stupid decision with a child laborer so that they make more educated decisions.