The announcement was made Monday, May 19 on the occasion of the Choose France summit in Versailles. And she did not go unnoticed. “Out of the Table”, hammered Emmanuel Macron, about the European Directive on the Duty of Vigilance of Business (CS3D). The French president wants to remove this directive, adopted in April 2024 and planned for entry into force from 2028.
Objective of this text: to oblige groups, under penalty of condemnation in justice, to better monitor their production chains, to ensure respect for human rights and the environment. Forced work, child labor, employee safety, or even deforestation.
The text only concerns companies with more than 1000 employees, achieving a turnover of at least 450 million euros. About 5,500 French companies would be affected.
Competitiveness and fight against bureaucracy
By attacking this directive, Emmanuel Macron walks in the footsteps of the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who had made similar remarks two weeks ago. Both have evoked the imperatives of competitiveness and the fight against bureaucracy, especially in the current geopolitical context. According to them, Europe, taking more restrictive standards than the United States or China, is shooting in the foot.
“We have to go fast and strong if we want to return to the race,” hammered the President of the Republic on Monday, in front of the guests of the Choose France summit.
Emmanuel Macron observed that Europe had increased “many constraints and regulations in many sectors, while opening its markets to businesses”, notably Chinese, “practicing lower standards”, while at the same time European companies suffered “aggressive policy” implemented by Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of Joe Biden.
Delete rather than repel
Initially planned for 2027, the directive had already been postponed to 2028 by the European Commission, under pressure from lobbies and following the requests of several states including France from January.
The EU also agreed to revise the ambitions of this text downwards, via an “Omnibus” legislative package presented on February 26. While the initial version asked groups to monitor all their suppliers, including abroad, Revised version only applies to “direct” suppliers and not to subcontractors more downstream from the supply chain.
Another concession proposed by the Commission last February: production channels will be checked every five years, and not each year as initially planned.
The European Commission “began to react (by rejecting the Directive from 2027 to 2028, editor’s note) but now everything is based on the speed and the scale of our reaction,” said Emmanuel Macron.
The employers satisfied, not the NGOs
Considering that a simple postponement was not enough, Emmanuel Macron pleaded on Monday for a “pure and simple” deletion of the directive. Friedrich Merz had made similar comments on May 9, saying that simple postponement was “not a lasting solution”.
The two leaders thus agree with the employers of the two countries, which claimed this removal rather than a simple postponement. France Industry had notably asked European parliamentarians in March 2024 not to vote “a harmful text for European industry”, running “competitive, commercial and litigation risk for industry, French in particular”. The text had still been voted as part of the green pact.
Conversely, NGOs firmly denounce The unraveling of environmental measures adopted during the commission’s previous mandate. Some heads of state, like the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, also made their disagreement with the simplification advocated by Paris and Berlin.
Other European standards in the viewfinder
In addition to the duty of vigilance, other regulations are also in the viewfinder of Paris, like the Directive on Environmental Reporting (known as CSRD). Last January, the government spokesperson did not not chewed her words To judge this European measure, also postponed to 2028, supposed to force groups to more transparency on their sustainability data.
Sophie Primas had described this one as “hell for businesses”. “I believe that the European Union as a whole realized that it had been a little too far,” she continued.
Another measure in the crosshairs: regulations on European taxonomy. Taking the example of steel, Emmanuel Macron deplored the high level of requirement imposed on European companies on Monday. “Preserving fair competition conditions means setting up safeguard clauses, ensuring that we have border adjustment mechanisms or, if we are unable to do so, correct our own regulations,” he said.
“We know what to do, we had the Letta report, the Draghi report, the commission began to react, summed up the French president, but it is really a question of implementing this plan with speed and magnitude”.