The EU Supply Chain Law—already passed in 2024—was intended to oblige companies to respect human rights, the environment and climate protection in their global supply chains. However, in early December 2025, negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council of the 27 EU member states agreed on a version that effectively continues to exempt companies from any meangingful due diligence obligations. This followed a vote in November, when European conservatives, together with the far right, forced a new vote in Parliament with 382 votes to 249.
‘Despite the accusations, EPP group leader Manfred Weber expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the vote and spoke of a “good day for Europe’s competitiveness”,’ reported Tagesschau on 13 November.
The fight against windmills for more human rights and environmental protection
Dhaka, Bangladesh April 2013: 1,134 workers—most of them women—lost their lives and almost 2,500 were injured when the Rana Plaza garment factory collapsed. This disaster forced the media, trade unions, and political parties around the world to finally take a closer look at production conditions in international corporate supply chains. Workers of Rana Plaza, some of them minors, produced clothing for brands such as Benetton, C&A, KiK, and Zara for salaries of around €30–80 per month. Despite dangerous cracks being discovered in the building, factory owners coerced them into continuing work. Under pressure and without union organisation, the garment workers were compelled to enter the factory, only to be buried under the rubble a few hours later.
Capitalists typically relocate production further and further to so-called ‘poorer’ countries in order to exploit people and the environment through low wages and unhealthy—or even deadly—working conditions in the name of competitiveness. Violations of human rights, including modern slavery and child labour, are repeatedly justified by claims that global production chains are too complex and opaque to regulate. Local suppliers, in turn, argue that they cannot improve working conditions—particularly in the textile industry—because international corporations refuse to pay fair prices.
Workers and activists have always fought against this exploitation alongside demands for greater environment and climate protection. Eventually, the then German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Gerd Müller (CSU), attempted to draw concrete consequences for German corporations from the Rana Plaza disaster. He initially pursued voluntary due diligence commitments in supply chains—without success. He then drafted the mandatory German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG) together with his SPD colleague Hubertus Heil. The attempt faced strong opposition from business associations such as BDI, BDA, DIHK, Gesamtmetal,l and Textil & Mode, as reported by taz. Despite obvious shortcomings—and criticism from civil society—the law was finally passed by the Bundestag in June 2021.
In May 2024, after a tough battle—including resistance from corporations such as France’s TotalEnergies, as Junge Welt reports—the EU Council, as the final authority, passed the EU Supply Chain Directive (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive – CSDDD). Although significantly watered down by compromise, it was intended to have a deeper impact on value chains than its German counterpart. Global Witness strongly critisised the law as too weak, but nevertheless considered it a milestone towards more binding corporate responsibility, moving away from hollow voluntary Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) measures.
While other EU countries still have plenty of time to incorporate the new directive into their national laws, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) has been able to assess its German variant for two years. The study addresses vast shortcomings as well as violations, yet the law has enabled Ecuadorian and Costa Rican farmers to file complaints against German supermarket chains such as Aldi and Lidl.
Against slavery, child labour, exploitation, and environmental pollution—and with civil liability and clear sanctions—things appeared, after years of civil society pressure, to finally be moving in the right direction for global protection of workers, the environment, and the climate:
“This law is a historic breakthrough. Companies are now responsible for potential abuses in their value chain, ten years after the Rana Plaza tragedy. Let this deal be a tribute to the victims of that disaster, and a starting point for shaping the economy of the future – one that puts the well-being of people and the planet before profits and short-termism,” EU Parliament quoted lead MEP Lara Wolters (S&D, NL) in their press release 2023.
If only there were no crisis of capitalism, no powerful industry lobby, no energy dependency, and no rightward shift across Europe.
Together with the far right for more ‘competitiveness’: the thorn in capitalism’s side must be removed
Having only come into force in January 2023—and even having been drafted by party colleagues—the new black-red government is now abolishing the German LkSG, derided as a “great bureaucratic monster”, in its coalition agreement. In May 2025, the newly elected Chancellor Merz traveled to Brussels and, under the guise of “bureaucracy reduction”, called for the complete abolition of the new EU supply chain directive as well. This move surprised even his coalition partners and drew criticism from both the EU and the SPD, which had considered the German law one of its major achievements under Chancellor Angela Merkel. The SPD had agreed to a compromise: the German version would be replaced with the EU directive. Prior to this, business associations had already complained to then chancellor Olaf Scholz about the stagnating German economy, further undermining the LkSG.
Meanwhile, conservatives and liberals worked hard to significantly weaken the EU supply chain law, with Germany in particular opposing it. Resistance to the original version of the directive also came from abroad: Qatar threatened to cancel LNG exports for 2026 due to the “excessive requirements” of the planned due diligence obligations as Reuters reported. Moreover, according to new revelations available to SOMO, US energy companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron also lobbied heavily, participating in a so-called “Competitiveness Roundtable” on the Omnibus I package to weaken the rules.
Human Rights Watch criticised the flawed and opaque process, in which no civil society actors were involved: “The process began on November 8, 2024, when EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a fleet of so-called Omnibus laws to simplify the European Green Deal. The proposed changes, made public only in February 2025, weakened key provisions of the corporate accountability law, making it harder for victims of rights abuses to sue companies.”
All political groups in the European Parliament had until November 2025 to submit amendments. The conservative European People’s Party (EPP), Social Democrats (S&D), and Liberals generally work together in an informal coalition within the EU. This time, however, some Social Democrat MEPs voted against the plan to significantly weaken the law in a secret ballot. Nonetheless, the conservatives still had an ace up their sleeve for a majority in Parliament: the right-wing and far-right parties, which are now well represented in the EU. In the end, with the votes of the right wing, the conservatives succeeded in watering down the EU Supply Chain Directive beyond recognition. According to estimates, the new law will only affect 15% of the companies originally planned: only 1,500 of the largest corporations with an annual turnover of €1.5 billion, down from millions initially envisaged. TCivil liability for human rights violations and the obligation to comply with the Paris Climate Agreement were also dropped.
“It repeats at European level what we experienced in Germany earlier this year: Contrary to repeated affirmations and without necessity, the CDU and CSU have entered into an alliance with the right-wing extremists and have finally brought down the firewall to the far right. Driven by the far-right, the Union is sacrificing key achievements for the global protection of human rights,” FEMNET states in their press release in November.
Only the workers rising up against global exploitation is the real solution!
This case shows how even well-intentioned reforms are systematically fought, diluted, and reversed by capital and those in power. Reforms can easily be undone by subsequent governments, especially during the ongoing crisis of capitalism that has persisted since at least the 2008 financial crash. Conservative forces no longer shy away from cooperation with the far right and fascists to impose corporate interests against workers, the environment, and the climate.
Although Bangladesh has now ratified all International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions and the number of trade unions has increased since the Rana Plaza catastrophe, worker organisation remains weak. In 2024, around 70% of the country’s 4,000 textile factories still had no registered trade unions, as reported by the Business and Human Rights Centre. Wages have risen only marginally, while workers in unsafe factories continue to fear for their lives. Survivors and relatives of Rana Plaza victims are still waiting in vain for accountability and adequate compensation.
Only when workers organise and rise up together internationally against capitalist corporations and factory owners—taking democratic control over how production is organised—will people, the environment, and the climate be genuinely and sustainably protected.
