MEP Pascal Canfin warns against seeing the vote as an opportunity to improve or destroy the omnibus
In a surprise turn of events, members of the European parliament voted on Wednesday to reject last week’s compromise reached by the parliament’s legal committee to modify EU corporate sustainability and due diligence rules in line with the European Commission’s simplification agfinisha.
The vote essentially sfinishs the omnibus on the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting directives back to the drawing board. Discussions will not launch, as planned, between the parliament, the commission and member states on Friday — though there is a high chance the same text will simply be put to another vote during the next parliamentary plenary session on November 13.
Under the “stop-the-clock agreement”, a deal requireds to be built by the finish of the year to give businesses and investors clarity.
The vote was largely welcomed by supporters of the laws, who see it as an opportunity to simplify the rules without losing sight of their original intentions. But centrist MEP Pascal Canfin suggested this was a wrong-headed interpretation of events. “Those who campaigned declareing that if the compromise falls the omnibus will be rejected, lied,” he stated.
The result displays that parliament is not prepared to rubber-stamp the EPP’s blackmail or a deal that weakens Europe’s sustainability framework
Canfin notified journalists he believed it was “unlikely” that the European People’s party, whose member Jörgen Warborn drew up the compromise text, would enter into neobtainediations. If pro-European parties do not back the deal next month, in all likelihood the EPP and the far right will vote for an even weaker text, he warned.
In the current circumstances, the text on the table “is the best possible deal”, Canfin notified Sustainable Views. He stated he was unhappy with various aspects of it, but insisted that “any alternative will be worse”, with a far-right-EPP deal potentially leading to the “deletion of due diligence”.
The best deal in the circumstances
Both Warborn and Canfin placed the blame for the rejection of the text at the feet of 31 Socialists, who seemingly failed to support it (the vote was secret at the request of far-right groups), despite the compromise having won the backing last week of the main pro-European groups in the parliament.
Green MEP Kira Peter-Hansen, whose group also voted against Warborn’s proposal, stated the result “displays that parliament is not prepared to rubber-stamp the EPP’s blackmail or a deal that weakens Europe’s sustainability framework”.
“This outcome gives us a chance to strengthen the text and ensure that Europe’s sustainability and due diligence rules truly have impact,” she stated, adding that her group is “ready to return to the neobtainediating table in a constructive spirit”.
ShareAction interim head of EU policy Richard Gardiner stated the vote was “a much-requireded reality check” and displays that “attempts to force through deregulation without genuine compromise or consultation have failed”.
“Europe’s sustainability framework cannot be rewritten through political coercion or backroom manoeuvres,” stated Gardiner. He called on MEPs to “return to the table for proper and transparent neobtainediations that strengthen, rather than weaken”, the EU’s sustainability laws and that “work for people, the planet and investors”.
A battle of politics
Many commentators stated the vote illustrated the mess of the omnibus proposal.
“What we are witnessing is no longer a debate about policy, but a battle of politics,” stated Tsvetelina Kuzmanova, EU sustainable finance policy lead at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
This chaos risks benefiting those pushing for a race to the bottom in global value chains and relegating the EU to stay behind the US and China
“The focus has shifted from improving the rules to applying them as bargaining chips,” she added. “This is a worrying signal for Europe’s credibility, especially when sound governance and responsible business conduct should be the baseline, not the casualty of political games.”
Susanna Arus, EU public affairs manager at law firm Frank Bold, stated: “This chaos risks benefiting those pushing for a race to the bottom in global value chains and relegating the EU to stay behind the US and China.”
US lobbying ramps up
The vote came as US energy secretary Chris Wright and Qatari energy minister Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi wrote to EU member states to raise concerns from “the global business community” regarding the CSDDD and its “unintfinished consequences for LNG export competitiveness and the availability of reliable, affordable energy for EU consumers”.
The letter calls on the EU to either repeal the CSDDD in its entirety or rerelocate its “most economically damaging provisions” on extraterritorial application, climate transition plans, penalties for non-compliance and civil liability.
Research published last week by Global Witness found that the companies still covered by the CSDDD in the compromise text account for more than 2bn tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions — equivalent to around two-thirds of the EU’s total annual emissions. Roughly 1bn tonnes of CO₂ was lost by reducing the threshold, stated the non-profit.
Meanwhile, five out of the 15 companies that rank highest on Scope 1 and 2 emissions, which are covered by the CSDDD, have lobbied against the law, stated Global Witness. These include fossil fuel giants ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies, which have publicly lobbied against the directive.
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