Politicians have to stand up for human rights and the environment

At the climate summit in Brazil, Germany endorsed a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels. Berlin will hardly want to face accusations of yielding to fossil-fuel giants such as Exxon. Yet within the European Union, that is precisely what now appears possible.

A majority in the European Parliament has approved a resolution that could intensify the climate crisis: lawmakers removed the requirement for companies to develop climate-action plans under the EU Supply Chain Law and diluted core provisions of the EU Green Deal beyond recognition. The question is—why?

Under sustained pressure from the fossil-fuel and chemical industries, as well as from the governments of the United States and Qatar, the conservative European People’s Party (EPP) under its chairman Manfred Weber (CDU), together with far-right parties, voted on November 13 to turn the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) into a largely symbolic framework. As a result of the Parliament’s decision, companies would no longer be required to draft climate-transition strategies. Moreover, an EU-wide liability system has been removed—discarding a vital mechanism that would have enabled victims of corporate-driven human rights abuses to seek justice in court. Most dramatically, more than 70 percent of the companies originally covered by the directive would now be exempt, limiting the law to firms with over 5,000 employees.

Business lobby groups branded the law a “bureaucratic burden” from the moment it passed in June 2024. Months later, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen introduced a proposal that further weakened the legislation—while civil-society groups were largely sidelined.

Yet the final outcome is still undecided. Critical negotiations between the European Parliament, the Commission, and member states are underway. In this trilogue process, Germany—Europe’s most populous and economically influential nation—has a decisive role. Berlin must now demonstrate its commitment to strong human-rights safeguards and reject the diluted version of the law. Key elements must be preserved: the threshold applying to companies with at least 1,000 employees; harmonized EU-wide liability provisions; mandatory climate-action plans; and binding, risk-based due diligence across entire supply chains. That means companies must identify human-rights and environmental risks in their supply chains and take concrete measures to prevent and remedy harm.

Corporate neglect of human rights can have devastating consequences. In 2019, the collapse of a tailings dam at a Brazilian iron-ore mine killed at least 250 people in a torrent of toxic sludge. Exploitation, environmental destruction, and systemic abuses remain widespread across global value chains. Robust EU supply-chain legislation is essential to protect vulnerable communities and ecosystems—and it also offers legal clarity for businesses.

Weak, uneven standards across Europe, by contrast, serve no one. Recently, 88 companies from Germany and other European countries—including Aldi Süd and Tchibo—joined 134 investors and financial institutions in urging EU lawmakers to retain climate-plan obligations and protect the core integrity of the directive.

It must therefore be hoped that the entire German government will remain steadfast in the trilogue negotiations and defend a law that genuinely protects human rights and the environment.

If the CDU continues to follow the EPP’s obstructive course in the European Parliament, the SPD—architect of Germany’s national supply-chain law—should make clear that it will not accept the erosion of global human-rights standards under corporate pressure. The SPD must ensure that the CDU does not disregard the coalition’s position, as happened during the member-state vote on the EU law in May.

The European Green Deal—paired with strong supply-chain legislation—is intended to be the political foundation for a sustainable and more equitable European future. The German government must remain committed to this vision.