It’s a day of decisions: This Wednesday, members of the Strasbourg European Parliament will vote on several groundbreaking legislative proposals. It’s about human rights, air pollution and agricultural policy. These are the most important topics:
EU supply chain law
In the future, large companies should be held accountable if they profit from human rights violations such as child or forced labor outside the EU. This is the aim of the EU supply chain law, which a majority of parliamentarians voted for. Larger companies also have to create climate plans.
Representatives of the European Parliament and the EU states negotiated hard before the vote. A first compromise did not initially find a sufficient majority and was weakened again.
Instead of as originally planned, the law should not apply to companies with more than 500 employees and at least 150 million euros in sales, but only for companies with 1,000 employees and 450 million euros in sales. In the first few years after the law was introduced, the limits are even higher. Nevertheless, the new regulation would go beyond the German Supply Chain Act in certain aspects. In contrast to the European version, it is excluded that companies are liable for breaches of duty of care.
Critics – such as the FDP – express concern that the law will place too great a bureaucratic burden on companies. When the member states made their decision in Brussels, Germany abstained from voting because of opposition from the liberals and also refused to approve the weaker version.
Air pollution
According to the EU Environment Agency EEA, bad air remains the greatest health risk posed by environmental conditions. Stricter limits should therefore apply from 2030 onwards for fine dust, nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and sulfur dioxide (SO₂). The MPs want to decide this Wednesday what representatives of the EU states and the EU Parliament agreed on in February.
The new rules are intended to ensure that air pollution in Europe does not harm human health, Parliament said. Citizens should be entitled to compensation if they become ill because limit values are not met. The limit values for certain fine dust particles and sulfur dioxide are to be halved. After the vote in the European Parliament, the EU states still have to confirm the new rules. This is usually a formality and is scheduled for next week.
Agrarian reform
Angry farmers have demonstrated not only in Germany this year, but also several times in Brussels, paralyzing the European Quarter with their tractors. And the protest is having an impact: many European politicians are keen to calm the angry farmers in time before the European elections at the beginning of June.
The European Parliament in Strasbourg is now expected to vote late on Wednesday afternoon for a reform package that is intended to bring less bureaucracy and more income to farmers – but also endangers the EU’s environmental and climate policy, as critics complain.
Farmers are thus permanently relieved of the obligation to leave four percent of arable land fallow. Anyone who does so must be paid by the state, so the EU relies on voluntary action. Rules for crop rotation that were enacted so that the soil can recover better are being weakened. National governments can also apply a number of other eco-rules more flexibly than before. Companies with an area of less than ten hectares should no longer be checked to see whether they actually apply the rules.