Press Statement: ActionAid’s Response to the Omnibus proposal
Today, the European Commission officially announced their omnibus bill that prioritizes competitiveness and corporate interests over the protection of human rights and the environment. This comes as a response to businesses protesting that recently passed environmental regulatory framework impedes their innovation and competitiveness, of which there is little evidence and most of which have not entered into force yet.
With the bill’s now official announcement, the Commission has both failed to follow the fundamental rules of EU policymaking while also contradicting the very values that the EU stands for. The Corporate Sustainability and Due Diligence Directive is significantly weakened, making new provisions weaker than existing non-binding international standards. It removes core obligations such as civil liability and reduces the scope of the value chain covered by the Directive significantly.
Javier Garcia, Head of Country Support for Europe and the Americas (ActionAid International):
"The European Commission has just given the keys of European policy making to big (polluting) businesses by moving forward with the Omnibus. It literally disregards a democratically adopted set of regulations and its own policy making procedures to transform demands formulated by big (polluting) businesses into a legislative proposal. This is a live hold up on democracy and on our core values such as the protection of human rights and the environment. This will also have damaging effects on European climate diplomacy.
European productivity and competitiveness need long-term strategic investments in renewable infrastructure that reduces the costs of energy; investments in education and training to tackle the skills shortage; and redistributive fiscal policies that enable a just transition that leaves no one behind. In fact, this U-turn reinforces the most important concern expressed by European businesses in the EIB annual survey: ‘uncertainty about the future.’”
Chloé Rousset, Decent Work & Corporate Accountability Campaigner (ActionAid France):
"This proposal, and the way it was enforced, is clearly dangerous. Dangerous for access to justice and respect for human rights, dangerous for the climate, dangerous for our democracy. Business as usual is not acceptable anymore, not in 2025, not in the face of such a worrying political context. The EU should lead the way, not destroy its own credibility. But we won't give up."
Anna Hengeveld, Senior Policy Advisor on Gender and Corporate Accountability (ActionAid Netherlands):
“This decision is a slap in the face of millions of women and communities in the Global South that are hit hardest by corporate abuse." By reducing due diligence obligations for the biggest corporations in Europe merely to direct suppliers, corporate impunity will persist.
As Hengeveld says, "Land grabbing and pollution by mining companies or sexual violence at the workplace in sweat shops, such corporate abuses occur further down the value chain. Gross corporate abuses get a free pass at the expense of people and the planet.”
[ENDS]
Notes to editor
Javier Garcia, Head of Country Support for Europe and the Americas, and Anna Hengeveld, Policy Advisor (ActionAid Netherlands) are available for interviews. Please contact our press liaison at gabriela.mjaanes@actionaid.org to arrange.
About ActionAid
ActionAid is an international charity that works with women and girls living in poverty. Our dedicated local staff are changing the world with women and girls. We are ending violence and fighting poverty so that all women, everywhere, can create the future they want.