Support is essential, especially for small and medium-sized businesses – no gold plating: implementation must catch the looming “bureaucratic monster”.
Vienna (OTS) – The European Parliament approved the EU Supply Chain Act (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive) on Wednesday. This potentially makes European companies liable for any misconduct that occurs along their supply chain with contractual partners anywhere in the world. From the point of view of the economy, there is a threat of a bureaucratic monster that does not do justice to the noble intentions, continues to miss the actual goals and massively damages Europe’s competitiveness.
“The intentions may be the very best. But the world has never become better with more bureaucracy,” says Rosemarie Schön, head of the legal policy department at the Austrian Chamber of Commerce (WKÖ). The fact that small and medium-sized companies are formally excluded is irrelevant in practice if the obligations of affected larger companies have to be passed on along the supply chain (“trickle-down effect”).
“The bureaucracy and documentation requirements are already difficult to cope with, especially for SMEs. There must be no gold plating: the administrative effort and costs for administrative regulations must be kept as low as possible during the national implementation of the supply chain law in Austria,” emphasizes Schön.
The Chamber of Commerce insists that the promised support measures be implemented quickly and that the additional effort is also financially cushioned. Through appropriate guidelines, the processes and testing obligations must be as clear and practical as possible.
“There is a legitimate concern that supply relationships will be broken off or that European companies will have to withdraw from some third countries because the liability risks will escalate. This would undermine the protective purpose of the law and the damage to the EU as a business location would be enormous. This must be avoided at all costs – that is why rapid and effective government support measures are essential,” concludes Schön. (PWK157/HSP)
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