The EU threatens to backtrack on human, social and environmental rights

The Citizen Forum for Economic Justice opposes the European Commission's plan to use an "Omnibus" directive to review and potentially roll back the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D), the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and the Green Taxonomy. The authors contend that private sector lobbies are using "competitiveness" and "administrative simplification" as pretexts to weaken corporate responsibility, specifically threatening the principle of civil liability and the requirement for science-aligned climate transition plans. They argue that these regulations are essential for meeting Paris Agreement commitments and protecting human and environmental rights.

• The European Commission is considering an "Omnibus" legislation to renegotiate the Directive on Due Diligence, the Directive on Sustainability Reporting, and the Green Taxonomy, following President Ursula von der Leyen's stated intention to reduce "bureaucracy" for European companies.
• Private sector lobbies are leveraging concepts of "competitiveness" and "administrative simplification," citing the September Draghi report and the November Budapest Declaration, to push for the reversal of Green Deal advancements.
• There is a specific risk that the review of these texts will allow member states to remove civil liability, which would strip the regulations of their binding nature and fail to protect populations and the environment from multinational corporate breaches.
• The authors assert that removing climate-related obligations, such as the requirement for companies to implement science-aligned climate transition plans, would make it impossible to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.
• The influence of agro-industrial lobbies is cited as the reason for a one-year postponement in the implementation of the Deforestation Regulation, which prohibits products linked to forest destruction from the European market.

APA

Martin, L. (2024). The EU threatens to backtrack on human, social and environmental rights. Reclaim Finance. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2024/11/26/the-eu-threatens-to-backtrack-on-human-social-and-environmental-rights/

Chicago

Martin, Léo. The EU threatens to backtrack on human, social and environmental rights. Reclaim Finance, 2024. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2024/11/26/the-eu-threatens-to-backtrack-on-human-social-and-environmental-rights/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Martin |first1=Léo |title=The EU threatens to backtrack on human, social and environmental rights |publisher=Reclaim Finance |date=26 November 2024 |url=https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2024/11/26/the-eu-threatens-to-backtrack-on-human-social-and-environmental-rights/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{martin2024threatens, author = {Martin, Léo}, title = {{The EU threatens to backtrack on human, social and environmental rights}}, publisher = {Reclaim Finance}, year = {2024}, month = nov, url = {https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2024/11/26/the-eu-threatens-to-backtrack-on-human-social-and-environmental-rights/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }