Tom de Bruijn, Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, 2 Dec 2021

"My preference would be to legislate at the European level. I am therefore very disappointed that the European Commission (EC) has again postponed its proposal without giving a concrete date by which we can expect a proposal. The government has always maintained that if EU legislation does not get off the ground, we should switch to national legislation. I have not yet given up hope that a European proposal will be forthcoming, but we have reached the point of working on national legislation. There are three important reasons for this:

1. To increase the pressure on the European Commission.
2. If the EC does come up with a proposal next spring, then we will have not lost any time.
3. The Child Labour (Duty of Care) Act. I find it no longer tenable that a law that has been passed by the Parliament is not being implemented by the government."

[Note: This is a summary translation of the Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation's speech in Parliament by SOMO and MVO Platform. The minister added that the law will be developed according to the building blocks for EU legislation published previously by the Dutch Government.]