
La Strada International is one of the around 168 NGOs, notably Justice is Everybody’s Business and the European Coalition for Corporate Justice, that have signed a joint statement calling on the European Commission to actively safeguard EU corporate accountability laws, reaffirm the official timeline for their transposition and implementation, and ensure full transparency regarding the Omnibus process.
On 8 November 2024, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed an Omnibus law to amend three critical pillars of the European Green Deal: the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and the Taxonomy Regulation.
This proposal poses a significant risk to corporate accountability laws that are vital for protecting human rights, the environment, and the climate. The signatories of the joint statement have expressed concern that weakening these frameworks could delay progress on sustainability and green transitions, increase exploitation in global supply chains and create uncertainty for businesses and member states already transposing it to the national law.
We need adequate legislation and control mechanisms for the private sector to ensure businesses’ compliance with labour standards and human rights, enacting sanctions for businesses that do not respect human rights and the law. Due diligence obligations enables companies to assess and address risk, prevent potential forced labour impacts and remediate actual impacts in their own operations, their supply chain and other business relationships.
Whilst some of the world’s biggest companies distributed record dividends in 2023, their investments fall far short of what is needed to transition to sustainable and resilient business models.
Countries worldwide are strengthening corporate accountability laws—Europe must lead, not fall behind.
We call on President von der Leyen and the European Commission to:
Protect the CSDDD, CSRD, and Taxonomy Regulation;
Maintain the current implementation timeline with clear compliance guidelines.
Ensure full transparency in the Omnibus process.
Read the full statement here.