28 April 2025. On 26 February 2025, the European Commission unveiled its "Omnibus I" proposal, which aims to amend the Directive on corporate sustainability due diligence.
The Directive on due diligence was adopted in 2024 and requires major companies operating in Europe to prevent and stop human rights and environmental abuses resulting from their activities throughout the world.
The new proposal comes against a backdrop of massive deregulation, which is threatening to encourage social and environmental dumping.
Member organisations belonging to the Forum citoyen pour la Justice économique and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) have jointly denounced this attempt to question the Directive, ahead of its transposition into national law.
Our organisations call on the French government and Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to protect the aims of European Union (EU) due diligence obligations, especially at a time when civic space is shrinking, and human rights and the environment are increasingly under attack.
On Omnibus I, the organisations have the following recommendations:
– due diligence obligations should not be circumscribed to a company’s direct business partners, so as to avoid the most serious and frequently breaches to be disregarded ;
– maintain a broad definition of stakeholders and ensure their effective participation throughout the due diligence process;
– continue to require that Member States ensure that companies can be held liable under civil law in the event of culpable infringements;
– explicitly stipulate the obligation to implement climate transition plans; and
– consider extending due diligence obligations to financial services, in the long term.
Read our recommendations here (in french only).