Progress: Procedure completed
| Role | Committee | Rapporteur | Shadows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead | INTA |
LANGE Bernd ( S&D)
|
Lead committee dossier:
Legal Basis:
RoP 136-p1, RoP 136-p5
Legal Basis:
RoP 136-p1, RoP 136-p5Subjects
Events
The European Parliament adopted by 503, votes to 6, with 4 abstentions, a resolution on a new trade instrument to ban products made by forced labour.
According to ILO estimates, 25 million people worldwide are currently in a situation of forced labour and, of these, 20.8 million are in privately imposed forced labour and 4.1 million in state-imposed forced labour. Women and girls comprise 61 % of those in forced labour with migrant workers being especially vulnerable to forced labour. Moreover, 160 million children were estimated to be in child labour globally at the beginning of 2020.
The EU economy is connected to millions of workers around the world through global supply chains and EU consumers want to be certain that the goods they buy are produced in a sustainable and fair way that ensures decent work for those who produce them.
Given that forced labour is a complex phenomenon and a ban on forced labour products will not be sufficient to eradicate forced labour and tackle the issue at its roots, the EU should also focus on dialogue with non-EU countries, technical assistance, capacity building and awareness raising.
The resolution stated that introducing a ban on products made by forced labour is a political priority of both Parliament and the EU as a whole.
Parliament called for a new WTO-compatible trade instrument to complement the corporate sustainability due diligence rules, banning the import and export of products made or transported by forced labour and which should be complemented with measures for intra-EU trade. The new proposal could be based on the best practices of countries with similar legislation in place such as the US and Canada.
The new instrument should allow for bans on forced labour products from a particular site of production, a particular importer or company, those from a particular region in the case of state-sponsored forced labour and those from a particular transport vessel or fleet.
Under the new EU instrument, public authorities, on their own initiative or acting on information they have received, should detain goods at the EU border when they consider that there is sufficient evidence that these goods were made or transported with forced labour.
The importer whose goods have been detained should then be given the opportunity to refute this accusation by proving that the goods were not made or transported with forced labour, which may then lead to the release of the goods. The resolution stressed that the evidence to prove an absence of forced labour must be based on ILO standards.
While acknowledging that a number of EU companies are already making efforts to ensure that practices that breach human rights and labour rights do not take place in their supply chains, the resolution called on the Commission to:
- offer companies, specifically SMEs, technical and other appropriate support to comply with the new rules in order to avoid unnecessary burdens for SMEs;
- assess the implementation of the instrument and its impact on EU companies;
- ensure that the new EU instrument requires the responsible companies to provide remediation to the affected workers prior to import restrictions being lifted;
- create guidelines to assist companies in the setting up of a supply chain mapping process in order to identify what constitutes relevant information.
Parliament called for a public database to be created containing information on individual suppliers, the risk they pose or, on the contrary, evidence of decent work, could reduce the administrative burden on companies. The resolution also called for a public list of sanctioned entities, regions and products to be created and maintained.
Documents
- Commission response to text adopted in plenary: SP(2022)554
- Results of vote in Parliament: Results of vote in Parliament
- Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
- Decision by Parliament: T9-0245/2022
- Oral question/interpellation by Parliament: B9-0015/2022
- Motion for a resolution: B9-0291/2022
- Motion for a resolution: B9-0291/2022
- Oral question/interpellation by Parliament: B9-0015/2022
- Commission response to text adopted in plenary: SP(2022)554
Activities
- Othmar KARAS
Plenary Speeches (2)
- Tiziana BEGHIN
Plenary Speeches (1)
- Yannick JADOT
Plenary Speeches (1)
- Agnes JONGERIUS
Plenary Speeches (1)
- Jiří POSPÍŠIL
Plenary Speeches (1)
- Inma RODRÍGUEZ-PIÑERO
Plenary Speeches (1)
- Helmut SCHOLZ
Plenary Speeches (1)
- Rainer WIELAND
Plenary Speeches (1)
- Clare DALY
Plenary Speeches (1)
- Samira RAFAELA
Plenary Speeches (1)
- Mick WALLACE
Plenary Speeches (1)
- Margarida MARQUES
Plenary Speeches (1)
- Guido REIL
Plenary Speeches (1)
- Alessandra BASSO
Plenary Speeches (1)
- Geert BOURGEOIS
Plenary Speeches (1)