"One more step towards addressing forced labour in supply chains: European Parliament’s Committee adoption of amended forced labour regulation", 17 Oct 2023

Today we are one step closer to stopping the flow of goods made with forced labour from being traded in the EU. The European Parliament’s Internal Market and Internal Trade Committees, that both lead on the file, have adopted their position on a proposed forced labour regulation. The vote yesterday was an important step in enacting legislation to address forced labour...

The two lead Parliamentary committees have addressed several shortcomings to the Commission’s proposal originally published in September 2022. The Parliament proposes that the European Commission should equally act as an enforcer, take a central role in receiving complaints and play a more active coordinating role. Complaints will also remain confidential, protecting complainants who raise concerns, wherever they are based.

The Parliament also addressed a major critique of the initial Commission proposal. Initially, the criteria for lifting a ban was only to show that there was no longer any forced labour. However, the Parliament rightly considers it essential for victims to be made whole and the provision of full remedy to victims is now needed as an additional condition to lift any ban.

The Parliament adds importantly that for products from industries in areas where there is credible evidence that labour has been imposed by the state, the competent authority (at Commission and/or member state level) may presume those products are made by forced labour. This would reverse the procedure and companies in these cases would need to prove their products were made without forced labour.

However, the core of the proposal, namely the investigation leading to bans of goods made with forced labour, has not improved sufficiently. Though the Parliament considers that due diligence can no longer be used as a defence against an investigation, at the same time, the Parliament introduced a seemingly unrealistic short deadline to prove forced labour has occurred. In addition, the evidence required to start an investigation and to ban a product remains impractically high.

The Council must now agree its position swiftly if we hope to see this law become a reality.