Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-11-24-Speech-3-481"
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"en.20101124.26.3-481"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, would like to begin by thanking my colleagues in the Committee on International Trade and, in particular, the shadow rapporteurs from the various groups for their cooperation in the drafting of this third report on a related topic. Today, we are able, thanks to this cooperation, to present a set of innovative, concrete proposals to move corporate social responsibility forward within the framework of EU trade policy.
After the international crisis and the economic and social damage it caused, and after the debates it prompted, the expectations voiced by the public and the political expectations for lessons to be learnt, our common conviction is that Europe’s trade policy must contribute more than ever to the objectives of regulating globalisation and, in particular, to its social and environmental objectives.
This regulation concerns the States and their economies, but it is clear that the main economic players are undertakings and, in particular, multinational corporations: they are the main players in world trade. They are the ones that have benefited most from market liberalisation, not only in terms of gaining access to customers, but also in order to externalise part of their production and to diversify their supply arrangements, often by drawing on countries where production costs are low and, above all, where social and environmental rules are applied less rigorously.
The liberalisation of trade has been accompanied by fierce competition among countries seeking to attract foreign investors and by stiffer competition between undertakings. All too often this has led to unacceptable abuses in relation to working conditions, and to human rights violations and environmental damage.
From the Bhopal disaster at the subsidiary of a chemical multinational in India, which claimed thousands of victims and for which the parent company has still not been punished to this day, to the behaviour of oil and mining companies in Africa, in Burma, and in many other countries, which is destroying their environment and reducing their workers to the rank of slaves; and from child labour in Asian textile factories to the murder of trade unionists on agricultural holdings in Central America, the examples are legion. And they are all the more unacceptable given that they often concern undertakings from industrialised countries, their subsidiaries and their supply chain, including European undertakings.
This gave rise, many years ago, to a debate and a campaign which, I might add, was supported on several occasions within this Parliament through the adoption of resolutions on corporate social and environmental responsibility. The progress made in corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not yet on a par with the debate on social standards in trade agreements, the subject of the report by Mrs Saïfi. This is understandable, because trade agreements concern legal rules that are binding among the States, whereas corporate social responsibility concerns voluntary commitments by undertakings. At the same time, however, it is paradoxical, because CSR and the social and environmental clauses pull in the same direction, namely, towards globalisation which is more respectful of human rights and the environment and which is conducive to sustainable development.
We therefore propose to incorporate CSR into trade agreements and, specifically, to incorporate a corporate social responsibility clause into the chapters on sustainable development, especially of free trade agreements (FTA), with a number of clear and verifiable commitments by undertakings. First, there must be a reciprocal commitment between the European Union and its partners to encourage undertakings to enter into CSR commitments and to verify them: the establishment of contact points not only to foster the provision of information but also to receive complaints from trade unionists and civil society; a requirement for corporations to publish their balance sheets regularly, which will reinforce transparency; a reporting requirement; and a requirement for undertakings to show due diligence and to take preventive measures.
Finally, we propose that, in the event of serious breaches of the principles underpinning CSR and also of the violation of social rights and social and environmental laws, there should be mechanisms ..."@en1
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