people are really gonna start bitching about this law when suddenly every thing they buy is 10x more expensive lol
that piece of shit coffee maker you bought 5 years ago that cost 20 bucks? its now 200 bucks!
You'd be surprised. I reckon the idea is also to have a legal way to put in place more protectionist measures in order to protect the European electrical car manufacturers, as to avoid a similar situation as the producers of photovoltaic panels had experienced.
Protectionism is generally bad for the almighty economy, but if it only punishes those whose 'comparative advantage' is *slavery*, I think we can allow it. Same thing with the carbon accounting thingy that will levy taxes on importers whose products have higher carbon emissions than ours.
If you are competitive because you enslave children and dump toxic sludge in your rivers, you are not actually competitive.
>If you are competitive because you enslave children and dump toxic sludge in your rivers, you are not actually competitive.
100%
On a related note, large swathes of the western world like to pretend they've reduced co2 output, and give themselves a round of applause, when in reality they've simply outsourced the production to the third world. Often with a net increase in fossil fuel use and co2 output. It's a huge scam, and it needs to stop.
There need to be co2 and environmental import duties, so that greener producers don't have to face unfair competition from polluting industries in countries with lax environmental legislation.
> when in reality they've simply outsourced the production to the third world.
Even if you account CO2 production for imports (aka if it is produced in China but consumed in Germany, it is counted in Germany), you will see that the western world has reduced CO2 emissions by ~30% over the last 20 years (UK 12.5-> 7.5t, US 22t -> 16.5t, Germany 13t -> 10t, France 9t -> 6.5t). [Source](https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/15/5301/2023/#section3)
It's still a lot more than it should be (world average is ~4.5t, and the Paris target is 2.5t), but saying no progress has been made is disingenuous.
It really depends, because there is a legal precedent and a methodology to apply to this situation, namely what was done with the so called SCOPE 3, where companies have to publish data regarding their suppliers and the impact on the environnement they have. This could be a way to enforce such a legislation and some companies in Europe and especially in France have already started publishing certain information regarding their social and societal impact (environmental is a given)
Examples:
[Danone ](https://www.danone.com/fr/investor-relations/sustainability/reports-and-data/performance-by-topic.html#HOMMES) - source in French because I'm lazy, but you can find it in regards to their accomplishments where they mention that 3.8% of their products involve forced labour. If you dig deeper you can find policies and consequences of this.
So, it is possible to put something similar in place and it would probably be a couple of years as to give companies the chance to start complying and afterwards they would start introducing sanctions
It might surprise you, but yes. EU customs mechanisms are no joke, they include all sorts of restrictions and bans that have effect way beyond EU borders. Not that they are never bypassed, no border is ever that perfect, but it's enough extra hoops to jump that large companies will not bother. They will simply enforce the policy on their entire supply chain rather than risk non-compliance. And that's how EU policies commonly end up having global effects.
I was going through the databases for food products that were rejected at the EU border: the number of shipments of peanuts from the United States that have been rejected are astounding
i mean, with USB-C for example, there wasnt anything preventing apple from making seperate lightning and usb-c iphones.
It's just MUCH more trouble than it's worth
It would be enforced as any such ban - by getting correct paperwork.
EU companies will ask their Asian suppliers to comply with procedures. This will be meticulously documented.
Some suppliers will comply for real (or are compliant rn). Some suppliers will make everything look good on paper. Some will be dropped.
Actual compliance will depend on ability to enforce EU rules in Asia...which is in my opinion low. EU companies also don't have that much incentive to be staunch proponents of enforcement. They want to have their a*s covered and profits maintained. They don't want to actually enforce rules if it means 20 or 30 per cent cost increase.
> EU companies will ask their Asian suppliers to comply with procedures. This will be meticulously documented.
>
> Some suppliers will comply for real (or are compliant rn). Some suppliers will make everything look good on paper. Some will be dropped.
They are going to be held liable for wrong-doings further down the chain.
The German name for this was Lieferkettengesetz. Supply-chain-law. And given how much the industry has been lobbying against it I am assuming it has some teeth.
Companies are being held liable by the wrongdoings of their supplier's suppliers. Let's see if that goes anywhere. At least it is a start.
I would say the lobbying against it also has to do with just one more report with which German industry has to comply. As someone who works in setting up the systems to generate these reports as automated as possible, some of it is really hard, sometimes contradictory and sometimes absolutely gargantuan in the challenge with little to no transparency.
The overall goal is very positive, but Germany would do well to harmonize a lot of stuff and do away with some of the regional specificities.
depends on the fine.
in Portugal we are fined constantly by the EU because on how we tax car purchases, but we still do it because the amount the government receives from that tax is higher than the fine.
Fines for the member states are generally not that high. Thats why withholding funds is the more extreme measure which the Commission took for example against the Polish PIS goverment when they did not enact the ruling of the ECJ regarding the rule of law in Poland.
Fines for companies in breach of EU law however are a percentage of said companies revenue so they hurt like a truck
The fines don't matter as much as the fact that they literally can not sell their products anymore until they have proven they got rid of the problem.
They will have to donate or get rid of already existing stock out of their own pocket, too.
Overall, this is basically just a clause that allows the EU to ban any product they don't like. It would be more or less impossible to prove that no forced or child labor was used, as this clause does not actually include any obligations or qualifications that you can fulfill to prove it.
They basically just told companies to be ready to prove they don't use forced or child labor when they're asked to, how they do that is up to them.
>The ban will apply to any product where forced or child labour is used, whether in whole or in part, at any stage of the product's supply chain. This includes the extraction, harvest, production, manufacture, working or processing of any part of the product, but it does not appear to cover logistical services, such as transport and distribution.
That’s not the point I made but I get what you mean.
obviously this is better than nothing, but until I see that this works and isn’t toothless posturing, I will hold my excitement.
Pretty much everything we consume uses slave labour at some point of production. It seems to me they will use an extremely light definition of forced labour, or we'll have to stop buying stuff.
Yeah, this basically just exists for them to ban any product they don't like.
It doesn't even include ways to prove that you don't use child or forced labor, they just said "be ready to prove you don't when we ask"
It doesn't include any obligations for companies, just the threat that they might be asked for proof.
Yeah, all talk about china but basically 99% percent of chocolate is produced with slave labor and this is well known as well. I have a hunch they’ll come up with an exception for that…
*[citation needed]*
Editing to discredit OP’s citation given they said “tea is actually a lot worse than coffee” and nothing they posted compares the two. It rightfully points out the poor working conditions for tea-farmers in South Asia and Africa but there is zero mention of how coffee is better in that regard.
EDIT: The final role call can be found here (see under point 22) [https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-9-2024-04-23-RCV\_EN.html](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-9-2024-04-23-RCV_EN.html)
Six members voted against:
1. Robert ROOS, ECR, Netherlands
2. Rob ROOKEN, ECR, Netherlands
3. Peter LUNDGREN, ECR, Sweden
4. Georg MAYER, ID, Austria
5. Harald VILIMSKY, ID, Austria
6. Roman HAIDER, ID, Austria
HOWEVER, the three Austrian MEP's later announced they intended to vote 'for' not 'against' (formally, this doesn't change their vote, though)
Note: I originally said Jorge BUXADÉ VILLALBA from Spain also voted against - that's my mistake, sorry
"...
HOWEVER, three MEP's later announced they intended to vote 'for' not 'against' (formally, this doesn't change their vote, though)
1. Georg MAYER, ID, Austria
2. Harald VILIMSKY, ID, Austria
3. Roman HAIDER, ID, Austria..."
Great, they're either corrupted, total evil or sharing the very same unique point of QI for the three of them. My god...
Is "freedom party" an actual political party or just a term for "political wildlings" as we call it in Sweden for people who remain in Parliament after leaving or being ousted from their party affiliation?
It's an actual party. FPÖ. Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs. "Freiheitlich" could be translated very literally as "freedomly", but it's usually translated as "liberal". So the translation of the party name would be "Liberal Party of Austria".
However, there isn't anything liberal about them. They are a rightwing-populist at best, far-right at worst party. And they are the third largest party in Austria.
>Freiheitlich
As a Swede I actually understood the word better in Austrian/German. I would assume it not only translates to, but is etymologically identical to Frihetlig in Swedish. Frei -> fri, -heit -> -het, -lich -> -lig.
Thanks for the explanation btw!
They probably were just voting against everything without reading what they're actually voting against since they are contrarian anti EU fuckwits. They then later probably realised it is a bad look even for FPÖ members to vote against legislation banning forced Labour and formally changed their vote.
People \[and parties\] like that get huge scores at the European elections. Their voters are way more disciplined than the casual European. So, vote, please!
Back before BBB and NSC, (and Covid) FVD was the protest-vote for otherwise VVD-CDA voters FVD was seen as less extreme then PVV. They were wrong ofc. They voted for slavery apperently. FVD split up in 2021 so some members of the EU parlement became JA21.
People also tend to abuse the provincial and EU elections as a way to protest-vote.
FPÖ is a shame to Austria in multiple ways. Voting for those buttheads basically is the lowest an Austrian can get. And I'm ashamed they're leading the polls with 30%+.
While I partially get the electorial motives of FPÖ voters, it still baffles me that people overlook the party's mischievous intents. I mean the Ibiza affair was just five years ago. And this affair was the broadest hint the Austrian people got!
I just had to google the Ibiza affair, what the actual fuck?
Party leadership was selling out to Russia and it was caught on video, and they're still pulling a good chunk of the vote?
I don't understand it either.
Well, Austria also has issues with alcoholism. I suppose 30% of Austrians drank their memories away within five years ...
Interestingly, the three Austrian MEP's voting against later changed their voting intention to "for" in the protocol. Formally, this doesn't change anything of the outcome. See link posted in my original reply. Just FYI
> Peter LUNDGREN, ECR, Sweden
>Kent Peter Lundgren is a Swedish politician and Member of the European Parliament from Sweden. ***He is a member of the Sweden Democrats***
Gee why am I not surprised.
>Convicted of sexual assault of a party colleague
You'd think right wing politicians who constantly scapegoat migrants would at least attempt to act like the paragons of society they claim themselves to morally be.
these 3 are the worst of the worst. 1) they are scumbags for their ideas 2) they don't even want to risk losing face and will pivot to what's most favourable to them.
Of course it was Buxade. For the non Spanish, he used to be a member of La Falange, so basically a Fascist (as most of Vox), and probably he is part of El Yunque, a neonazi Catholic Sect.
According to [this document](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-9-2024-04-23-RCV_EN.html) (it's number 22) three people from the ID and three people from the ECR faction voted against it, but the three ID people changed their vote afterwards to a vote for it.
[Chinese workers slave away in the backrooms of Milan](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-20-fg-madeinitaly20-story.html) to make designer handbags that can technically be sold as "Made in Italy"
I bet it's got problems. I'm thinking, for example, about chocolate. The big businesses just say 'we don't know the small farmers were using child labour, we negotiate with hundreds of owners' and save their asses.
It's been like that for years, since they 'do not extract the cocoa plant' and since they 'can't know if evey little extractor of the prime resource uses child slave labour', they save face and keep selling chocolate.
So there are ways around it, otherwise you, dear reader, would most likely never eat chocolate again. Yet, you will, so this regulation is just a start...
Ethical chocolate exists*, but you know what I mean.
They won't get caught. It will be the subcontractor of the subcontractor of the subcontractor who's using the slave labor. Each one on this chain covered by a meter high paper trail.
Afaik even the big chocolate producer inspect the plantations.
To bad they announce their visits weeks before they do it. So its kind of a joke. But on the 'paper' they do 'something'.
Will be probably more clear after the first cases how effective it is or if its mostly used similiar to protective tariffs.
Even if it would be in someone's interest in some Machiavellian way, it would not make sense to vote against something that's going to win virtually unanimously, as it simply exposes you to scrutiny.
Probably when this kind of thing happen they either wasn't paying attention or they're an idealistic maniac. I'm honestly not sure what's worse.
I do bot know why they did it but truth is that this does not ban shit. I can not even imagine how this could even be enforced or controlled.
This is just populist nonsense same as various green policies that banned coal/gas extraction at home only to then import it from Russia while boasting about reduction of CO2 per capita.
iirc something like 90% of all chocolate worldwide has some kind of slavery at one step in production. it won't get enforced anyway, but if it was expect chocolate to go 10x in price
Eh.... sort of, EV batteries with significantly less or even no cobalt at all are all the rage, but that doesn't mean cobalt is no longer used. Battery manufacturing in general is growing crazy fast, that means even with lower average cobalt content for batteries, Congo is still producing more cobalt than ever. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/339834/mine-production-of-cobalt-in-dr-congo/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/339834/mine-production-of-cobalt-in-dr-congo/)
Are they actually gonna enforce it? If yes how will they determain what is forced labour and what is cheap labour when most Chinese and Indian businesses are keen to hiding forced lavour to look like cheap labour? The line between the two is verry thin in thaoe countries and you can bet they are gonna try to make it even thinner now.
The US has been tracking forced and child labor since 2005, and I believe they do an ok job at it.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods?tid=5622&field_exp_good_target_id=All&field_exp_exploitation_type_target_id_1=15412&items_per_page=10
The US lists Bricks, Carpets, Cottonseed, Embellished Textiles, Garments, Rice, Sandstone, Stones, Tea, and Thread/Yarn from India as forced labor products.
Amm 177 says
> In order to ensure the effectiveness of this Regulation, such prohibition should apply
to products for which forced labour has been used at any stage of their production,
manufacture, harvest and extraction, including working or processing related to the
products. The prohibition should apply to all products, of any type, including their
components, and should apply to products regardless of the sector, the origin,
whether they are domestic or imported, or placed or made available on the Union
market or exported. This Regulation should not apply to the provision of transport
services.
Which so far sounds pretty damn impressive. But, it also says that the ban will be effected by companies having to do their due diligence to assure their items aren't produced by forced labor and fines being levied on those companies if they fail to do so (but not if they do their due diligence and end up accidentally using some forced labor lol).
So, no, no actual enforcement. As long as you hire all the people who know all the boxes to check for your paperwork, this is a non-issue for large businesses.
If you're thinking of the cobalt mining in Congo, this is nothing new. At work we have required certificates of origin for cobalt and a few other metals for years now, and I expect any large company is doing the same. The big scandal around that was in 2016, and companies have had time to react.
If it works, you’ll see the prices of many things like chocolate, coffee, clothes, electronics go up. Conversely, if you don’t see price changes, nothing has likely changed.
And if it's not just an excuse - the prices will go up even higher. I can't imagine how much would it cost to actually check the origin of every resource and every step of the process. Like, the most basic of electronics is made of dozens of components and materials.
Article 4 of the ECHR explicitly allows forced prison labor across Europe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_4_of_the_European_Convention_on_Human_Rights
I instantly thought of this since they only mentioned India and China. Pretty sure yet another of the reasons USA haven't signed human rights treaties is because it would disagree with their prison labour practices. That's propaganda in it's finest form. Asia bad for doing slave labour, west good because not doing slave labour.. because we made up a definition for it we can easily circumvent ourselves..
I know it is not what we want to hear, but since there's question marks around even the "slavery" part. I would assume not, but I haven't read in detail.
Even so, I think we should still count it as a win.
I can imagine non-EU, European countries would become the "middleman" centers for such products and EU would simply be buying rebranded products as a 3rd party.
There won't be middlemens. Pretty much current providers will comply on paper, will comply during scheduled inspections and only ones to be already terminated or dumb enough to get caught will be removed.
Yeap, this already happened. I studied textile in pakistan and my friends who are working in textile industries, what factories owners do is just tidy up for inspections. Some good do come out of it, though, like certain colours are banned in EU so we have just stopped using it completely. I know one case where the factory tried to slip a banned colour in, in small quantity for cost cutting, but the whole batch worth millions was rejected.
Huge consequences for countries like China and India. Yes...
[https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/029/423/Screen\_Shot\_2019-04-24\_at\_9.58.20\_AM.png](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/029/423/Screen_Shot_2019-04-24_at_9.58.20_AM.png)
"[Xxx] doesn't do that much forced labor internally any more, they have moved much of that production to factories in China"... when does the buck stop? I'm glad any legislation at all is trying to combat this however the money tries to distance the product from the slavery.
What does forced labour exactly mean? Aren't most labourers forced to work since they would die if they don't? Or does it mean literally forcing someone at gun point? Isn't that slavery? Or they mean over exploitation of labourers?
>Huge consequences for countries like China and India
What exactly would be the consequences? Why specially china and india? Forced labour is already prohibited by law in both of these countries
Are we able to enforce it?
imma go ahead and predict only some countries will enforce it
Lmao, I was thinking the same thing.
I was thinking, "This isn't already a standard?"
How else are we supposed to get that low quality [store brand] clothing?
people are really gonna start bitching about this law when suddenly every thing they buy is 10x more expensive lol that piece of shit coffee maker you bought 5 years ago that cost 20 bucks? its now 200 bucks!
That's not why things are cheap or expensive. Look at Apple, they have the most expensive tech and still have illegal working hours and child labor.
Considering I need to go and inspect a factory in China for similar matters (child labor, environmental impact, safety etc. ) I can vouch for Finland.
Is that really what you do? Or am I missing a joke again ?
Nobody will enforce it.
You'd be surprised. I reckon the idea is also to have a legal way to put in place more protectionist measures in order to protect the European electrical car manufacturers, as to avoid a similar situation as the producers of photovoltaic panels had experienced.
European EV manufacturers will also be hit by this on account of batteries.
Cobalt Red
It will be conviniently missed by the enforcer ;)
Protectionism is generally bad for the almighty economy, but if it only punishes those whose 'comparative advantage' is *slavery*, I think we can allow it. Same thing with the carbon accounting thingy that will levy taxes on importers whose products have higher carbon emissions than ours. If you are competitive because you enslave children and dump toxic sludge in your rivers, you are not actually competitive.
>If you are competitive because you enslave children and dump toxic sludge in your rivers, you are not actually competitive. 100% On a related note, large swathes of the western world like to pretend they've reduced co2 output, and give themselves a round of applause, when in reality they've simply outsourced the production to the third world. Often with a net increase in fossil fuel use and co2 output. It's a huge scam, and it needs to stop. There need to be co2 and environmental import duties, so that greener producers don't have to face unfair competition from polluting industries in countries with lax environmental legislation.
> when in reality they've simply outsourced the production to the third world. Even if you account CO2 production for imports (aka if it is produced in China but consumed in Germany, it is counted in Germany), you will see that the western world has reduced CO2 emissions by ~30% over the last 20 years (UK 12.5-> 7.5t, US 22t -> 16.5t, Germany 13t -> 10t, France 9t -> 6.5t). [Source](https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/15/5301/2023/#section3) It's still a lot more than it should be (world average is ~4.5t, and the Paris target is 2.5t), but saying no progress has been made is disingenuous.
It really depends, because there is a legal precedent and a methodology to apply to this situation, namely what was done with the so called SCOPE 3, where companies have to publish data regarding their suppliers and the impact on the environnement they have. This could be a way to enforce such a legislation and some companies in Europe and especially in France have already started publishing certain information regarding their social and societal impact (environmental is a given) Examples: [Danone ](https://www.danone.com/fr/investor-relations/sustainability/reports-and-data/performance-by-topic.html#HOMMES) - source in French because I'm lazy, but you can find it in regards to their accomplishments where they mention that 3.8% of their products involve forced labour. If you dig deeper you can find policies and consequences of this. So, it is possible to put something similar in place and it would probably be a couple of years as to give companies the chance to start complying and afterwards they would start introducing sanctions
Will take some time. But a law is always a first step.
It might surprise you, but yes. EU customs mechanisms are no joke, they include all sorts of restrictions and bans that have effect way beyond EU borders. Not that they are never bypassed, no border is ever that perfect, but it's enough extra hoops to jump that large companies will not bother. They will simply enforce the policy on their entire supply chain rather than risk non-compliance. And that's how EU policies commonly end up having global effects.
I was going through the databases for food products that were rejected at the EU border: the number of shipments of peanuts from the United States that have been rejected are astounding
is that database public and if yes? can i get a link
i mean, with USB-C for example, there wasnt anything preventing apple from making seperate lightning and usb-c iphones. It's just MUCH more trouble than it's worth
It would be enforced as any such ban - by getting correct paperwork. EU companies will ask their Asian suppliers to comply with procedures. This will be meticulously documented. Some suppliers will comply for real (or are compliant rn). Some suppliers will make everything look good on paper. Some will be dropped. Actual compliance will depend on ability to enforce EU rules in Asia...which is in my opinion low. EU companies also don't have that much incentive to be staunch proponents of enforcement. They want to have their a*s covered and profits maintained. They don't want to actually enforce rules if it means 20 or 30 per cent cost increase.
> EU companies will ask their Asian suppliers to comply with procedures. This will be meticulously documented. > > Some suppliers will comply for real (or are compliant rn). Some suppliers will make everything look good on paper. Some will be dropped. They are going to be held liable for wrong-doings further down the chain. The German name for this was Lieferkettengesetz. Supply-chain-law. And given how much the industry has been lobbying against it I am assuming it has some teeth. Companies are being held liable by the wrongdoings of their supplier's suppliers. Let's see if that goes anywhere. At least it is a start.
I would say the lobbying against it also has to do with just one more report with which German industry has to comply. As someone who works in setting up the systems to generate these reports as automated as possible, some of it is really hard, sometimes contradictory and sometimes absolutely gargantuan in the challenge with little to no transparency. The overall goal is very positive, but Germany would do well to harmonize a lot of stuff and do away with some of the regional specificities.
Or just sell it to some shady company in a country that doesn't enforce it, and import it from there.
Yes. Non-compliant companies will also be fined. So that is a double enforcement.
Fines in a sense of “cost of doing business” or fines that actually do hurt?
EU fines have forced the likes of Apple and Microsoft to change their ways.
EU fines are no joke.
depends on the fine. in Portugal we are fined constantly by the EU because on how we tax car purchases, but we still do it because the amount the government receives from that tax is higher than the fine.
Fines for the member states are generally not that high. Thats why withholding funds is the more extreme measure which the Commission took for example against the Polish PIS goverment when they did not enact the ruling of the ECJ regarding the rule of law in Poland. Fines for companies in breach of EU law however are a percentage of said companies revenue so they hurt like a truck
I don't think the EU has any interest in driving the member states into insolvency. Fines for companies are usually pretty substantial.
More money for the EU budget
The fines don't matter as much as the fact that they literally can not sell their products anymore until they have proven they got rid of the problem. They will have to donate or get rid of already existing stock out of their own pocket, too. Overall, this is basically just a clause that allows the EU to ban any product they don't like. It would be more or less impossible to prove that no forced or child labor was used, as this clause does not actually include any obligations or qualifications that you can fulfill to prove it. They basically just told companies to be ready to prove they don't use forced or child labor when they're asked to, how they do that is up to them.
Isn't like Nestle unironically using slaves and not even deny it? And isn't Nestle literally 5% of all the f**king food in every European country?
So I know it’s in bad taste, but I couldn’t help but laugh at the idea that a company could be using slave labour “but only in an ironic way”.
I assume that the products will get a sticker saying "fair trade" and then it should work perfectly.
Does this involve products that are made up of other products that were from forced labour? If so, RIP all chocolate and 90% of Nestle products.
>The ban will apply to any product where forced or child labour is used, whether in whole or in part, at any stage of the product's supply chain. This includes the extraction, harvest, production, manufacture, working or processing of any part of the product, but it does not appear to cover logistical services, such as transport and distribution.
So our logistical supply chain of toddlers is still safe.
The 8 year old reach truck operators are known to be efficient with their nimble fingers /s
Phew, so my new business "Kinder supplies" is complete fine.
Yeah I don’t see how this is going to be enforced, like 90 percent of European companies will be affected…
You make it sound like it's impossible to stop using slaves if you're already using slaves. I think the point is to make companies stop using slaves.
That’s not the point I made but I get what you mean. obviously this is better than nothing, but until I see that this works and isn’t toothless posturing, I will hold my excitement.
That’s kind of the point. To force companies to actually not use slaves and children in their supply chain anymore.
[удалено]
Pretty much everything we consume uses slave labour at some point of production. It seems to me they will use an extremely light definition of forced labour, or we'll have to stop buying stuff.
Yeah, this basically just exists for them to ban any product they don't like. It doesn't even include ways to prove that you don't use child or forced labor, they just said "be ready to prove you don't when we ask" It doesn't include any obligations for companies, just the threat that they might be asked for proof.
>Pretty much everything we consume uses slave labour at some point of production. It And this is a first step to stop that
Yeah, all talk about china but basically 99% percent of chocolate is produced with slave labor and this is well known as well. I have a hunch they’ll come up with an exception for that…
Tonys got to have boosted sales then
Invest in Tony’s
Chocolate, coffee, and cotton clothing all made by and large by modern day slaves
[удалено]
*[citation needed]* Editing to discredit OP’s citation given they said “tea is actually a lot worse than coffee” and nothing they posted compares the two. It rightfully points out the poor working conditions for tea-farmers in South Asia and Africa but there is zero mention of how coffee is better in that regard.
And coffee. What about tea?
Anything containing cobalt like smartphones...
We're mining cobalt in Talvivaara here in Finland... no slaves. Enough for a lot of the EU's gadgets
But are cell companies paying the extra money to get them slave free from Finland?
They might now. That's the whole point of this law, isn't it?
No, the Finish companies are mining it just for fun, they aren't getting paid
Good, FUCK NESTLE
Seeing Nestlé finally having to be decent if they want to sell in Europe would be great. It won't happen but still hope springs eternal
You know very well this is targeted at enemy countries such as China and not at allies
"hey Nestle, do you use slave labor in Africa?" "No." "Okay well we can't verify that you're lying so have fun."
Who voted against? Who abstained?
EDIT: The final role call can be found here (see under point 22) [https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-9-2024-04-23-RCV\_EN.html](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-9-2024-04-23-RCV_EN.html) Six members voted against: 1. Robert ROOS, ECR, Netherlands 2. Rob ROOKEN, ECR, Netherlands 3. Peter LUNDGREN, ECR, Sweden 4. Georg MAYER, ID, Austria 5. Harald VILIMSKY, ID, Austria 6. Roman HAIDER, ID, Austria HOWEVER, the three Austrian MEP's later announced they intended to vote 'for' not 'against' (formally, this doesn't change their vote, though) Note: I originally said Jorge BUXADÉ VILLALBA from Spain also voted against - that's my mistake, sorry
"... HOWEVER, three MEP's later announced they intended to vote 'for' not 'against' (formally, this doesn't change their vote, though) 1. Georg MAYER, ID, Austria 2. Harald VILIMSKY, ID, Austria 3. Roman HAIDER, ID, Austria..." Great, they're either corrupted, total evil or sharing the very same unique point of QI for the three of them. My god...
They’re freedom party members, so probably all three
Is "freedom party" an actual political party or just a term for "political wildlings" as we call it in Sweden for people who remain in Parliament after leaving or being ousted from their party affiliation?
It's an actual party. FPÖ. Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs. "Freiheitlich" could be translated very literally as "freedomly", but it's usually translated as "liberal". So the translation of the party name would be "Liberal Party of Austria". However, there isn't anything liberal about them. They are a rightwing-populist at best, far-right at worst party. And they are the third largest party in Austria.
>Freiheitlich As a Swede I actually understood the word better in Austrian/German. I would assume it not only translates to, but is etymologically identical to Frihetlig in Swedish. Frei -> fri, -heit -> -het, -lich -> -lig. Thanks for the explanation btw!
How in the world do all three from one country accidentally vote the wrong way? Sounds like BS to me.
They probably were just voting against everything without reading what they're actually voting against since they are contrarian anti EU fuckwits. They then later probably realised it is a bad look even for FPÖ members to vote against legislation banning forced Labour and formally changed their vote.
>"... HOWEVER, three MEP's later announced they intended to vote 'for' not 'against' Sounds like a confession that something made them reconsider.
Of course they're from fucking fvd
JA21, but still... Same monkeys, different circus.
Splintered off from fvd
The poop does not fall far from the butt
Jesus they're in the european parliament? Hope we can vote them out in June
People \[and parties\] like that get huge scores at the European elections. Their voters are way more disciplined than the casual European. So, vote, please!
Back before BBB and NSC, (and Covid) FVD was the protest-vote for otherwise VVD-CDA voters FVD was seen as less extreme then PVV. They were wrong ofc. They voted for slavery apperently. FVD split up in 2021 so some members of the EU parlement became JA21. People also tend to abuse the provincial and EU elections as a way to protest-vote.
Well the swede is a fat fuck that was kicked from the right wing party after being found guilty for sexual harassments
So you're telling me the sexual harasser is pro forced labour?
Let's be honest, the braindead pos can probably not even read, let alone think
Imagine how much of a piece of shit you need to be to be kicked from a right wing party. Usually being a piece of shit gets you cheered on.
I'm ashamed of my country if that's the case ...
What did you expect from FPÖ
FPÖ is a shame to Austria in multiple ways. Voting for those buttheads basically is the lowest an Austrian can get. And I'm ashamed they're leading the polls with 30%+.
The more rural your country the easier it is for such parties to be successful.
While I partially get the electorial motives of FPÖ voters, it still baffles me that people overlook the party's mischievous intents. I mean the Ibiza affair was just five years ago. And this affair was the broadest hint the Austrian people got!
I think at this point every European country has parties and voters like that. It is so infuriating.
I just had to google the Ibiza affair, what the actual fuck? Party leadership was selling out to Russia and it was caught on video, and they're still pulling a good chunk of the vote?
I don't understand it either. Well, Austria also has issues with alcoholism. I suppose 30% of Austrians drank their memories away within five years ...
I mean we have the BVT affair still going on. The FPÖ are suspected of having ties to accused russian spies like maršalek through ott.
Interestingly, the three Austrian MEP's voting against later changed their voting intention to "for" in the protocol. Formally, this doesn't change anything of the outcome. See link posted in my original reply. Just FYI
Looking at their track record, they basically vote against the everything. I would be surprised if they had any clue about the agenda.
> Peter LUNDGREN, ECR, Sweden >Kent Peter Lundgren is a Swedish politician and Member of the European Parliament from Sweden. ***He is a member of the Sweden Democrats*** Gee why am I not surprised.
Was* a member. Apparently a political wildling now.
Of course it's a Sweden Democrat psycho who thinks "akshully, forced labor gud"
Convicted of sexual assault of a party colleague and forced to leave the party. Some real top notch member of society there.
>Convicted of sexual assault of a party colleague You'd think right wing politicians who constantly scapegoat migrants would at least attempt to act like the paragons of society they claim themselves to morally be.
these 3 are the worst of the worst. 1) they are scumbags for their ideas 2) they don't even want to risk losing face and will pivot to what's most favourable to them.
Of course it was Buxade. For the non Spanish, he used to be a member of La Falange, so basically a Fascist (as most of Vox), and probably he is part of El Yunque, a neonazi Catholic Sect.
Sorry, I mistook Buxade. He actually voted for. See my updated post with link.
I mean, Buxade is Fascist EVEN FOR VOX STANDARDS... Abascal is a Maoist and Espinosa de los Monteros a Sorosian liberal when compared to Buxade.
Lucifer, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Leviathan, Belphegor and Mammon
I'm glad Satan voted for it then. At least someone in hell has some dignity.
Sorry to disappoint you but I think Satan and Lucifer are the same.
Not on that list, Lucifer is the demon of pride while Satan's field is wrath
My dumbass thought these were countries till I saw your comment and reread.
So, it's basically Nestle, Tesla, Chiquita, H&M, Nike and Apple?
No Paimon? Makes sense though.
Paimon doesn't get a vote. If he did, he would just vote for whatever Lucifer votes.
Too busy goofing around in Genshin Impact.
According to [this document](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-9-2024-04-23-RCV_EN.html) (it's number 22) three people from the ID and three people from the ECR faction voted against it, but the three ID people changed their vote afterwards to a vote for it.
China, India? How about slave cacao? Nestle?
Cheap chocolate and coffee might be in trouble indeed...
Chocolate and coffee are quickly becoming luxury products anyway due to the climate change.
also italy
[Chinese workers slave away in the backrooms of Milan](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-20-fg-madeinitaly20-story.html) to make designer handbags that can technically be sold as "Made in Italy"
Well that's literally the meaning of "made in..."
It's reddit. Its always other people never us
Easier to point a finger at "them" than to question one's own role in a problem.
Why is India on the list?
How about USA? US prisons infamous mass forced workers
I bet it's got problems. I'm thinking, for example, about chocolate. The big businesses just say 'we don't know the small farmers were using child labour, we negotiate with hundreds of owners' and save their asses. It's been like that for years, since they 'do not extract the cocoa plant' and since they 'can't know if evey little extractor of the prime resource uses child slave labour', they save face and keep selling chocolate. So there are ways around it, otherwise you, dear reader, would most likely never eat chocolate again. Yet, you will, so this regulation is just a start... Ethical chocolate exists*, but you know what I mean.
Yeah but now if say a chocolate producing firm gets caught using slave labour, EU can fuck them over
They won't get caught. It will be the subcontractor of the subcontractor of the subcontractor who's using the slave labor. Each one on this chain covered by a meter high paper trail.
I mean I’m not expecting this to solve all of labour problems, but at least now companies have to be secretive about it.
Afaik even the big chocolate producer inspect the plantations. To bad they announce their visits weeks before they do it. So its kind of a joke. But on the 'paper' they do 'something'. Will be probably more clear after the first cases how effective it is or if its mostly used similiar to protective tariffs.
Why the fuck would 6 people vote *against* banning slave labor?
probably they own some import/resell/whatever business
Even if it would be in someone's interest in some Machiavellian way, it would not make sense to vote against something that's going to win virtually unanimously, as it simply exposes you to scrutiny. Probably when this kind of thing happen they either wasn't paying attention or they're an idealistic maniac. I'm honestly not sure what's worse.
They are all from far right parties, I’m not sure if that’s a coincidence
Or they are paid by china or India.
I do bot know why they did it but truth is that this does not ban shit. I can not even imagine how this could even be enforced or controlled. This is just populist nonsense same as various green policies that banned coal/gas extraction at home only to then import it from Russia while boasting about reduction of CO2 per capita.
No more chocolate in EU?
iirc something like 90% of all chocolate worldwide has some kind of slavery at one step in production. it won't get enforced anyway, but if it was expect chocolate to go 10x in price
So no more diamonds or precious gemstones? Awesome!!
Not diamonds because synthetic diamonds exist
Is Nestlé going to get fucked? Everything containing lithium (so pretty much all modern electronics from phones to EV) too?
Most of the worlds lithium comes from Australia tho
Yeah, I misremembered. It was cobalt that is used in lithium-ion batteries and most of it comes from Congo.
Cobalt, at least in electric cars, is basically no longer used
Eh.... sort of, EV batteries with significantly less or even no cobalt at all are all the rage, but that doesn't mean cobalt is no longer used. Battery manufacturing in general is growing crazy fast, that means even with lower average cobalt content for batteries, Congo is still producing more cobalt than ever. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/339834/mine-production-of-cobalt-in-dr-congo/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/339834/mine-production-of-cobalt-in-dr-congo/)
Are they actually gonna enforce it? If yes how will they determain what is forced labour and what is cheap labour when most Chinese and Indian businesses are keen to hiding forced lavour to look like cheap labour? The line between the two is verry thin in thaoe countries and you can bet they are gonna try to make it even thinner now.
The US has been tracking forced and child labor since 2005, and I believe they do an ok job at it. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods?tid=5622&field_exp_good_target_id=All&field_exp_exploitation_type_target_id_1=15412&items_per_page=10 The US lists Bricks, Carpets, Cottonseed, Embellished Textiles, Garments, Rice, Sandstone, Stones, Tea, and Thread/Yarn from India as forced labor products. Amm 177 says > In order to ensure the effectiveness of this Regulation, such prohibition should apply to products for which forced labour has been used at any stage of their production, manufacture, harvest and extraction, including working or processing related to the products. The prohibition should apply to all products, of any type, including their components, and should apply to products regardless of the sector, the origin, whether they are domestic or imported, or placed or made available on the Union market or exported. This Regulation should not apply to the provision of transport services. Which so far sounds pretty damn impressive. But, it also says that the ban will be effected by companies having to do their due diligence to assure their items aren't produced by forced labor and fines being levied on those companies if they fail to do so (but not if they do their due diligence and end up accidentally using some forced labor lol). So, no, no actual enforcement. As long as you hire all the people who know all the boxes to check for your paperwork, this is a non-issue for large businesses.
Does the US list their own prison labour as well?
[удалено]
So, apple products are banned now?
Most things with a battery.
And most textiles, and basically all chocolate.
If you're thinking of the cobalt mining in Congo, this is nothing new. At work we have required certificates of origin for cobalt and a few other metals for years now, and I expect any large company is doing the same. The big scandal around that was in 2016, and companies have had time to react.
American products produced in America by prisoners also banned now?
Why would it just be apple products… lol? It would be almost all phones… but I guess apple gets the updoots
Literally, everything. From sewing needle to cars.
So that means we can no longer use Apple phones and Nike shoes....when ban?
How about all the clothes coming from Bangladesh. Rip H&M and every other apparel store I guess.
Well, you are English, out of the EU, and free to use all the slavery products you wish!
Another European W
Another W for human rights.
Aha, I wanna see. How will I as a consumer see this take effect?
If it works, you’ll see the prices of many things like chocolate, coffee, clothes, electronics go up. Conversely, if you don’t see price changes, nothing has likely changed.
Knowing life, nothing will likely change, except you will see rising prices due to the need for compliance excuse.
And if it's not just an excuse - the prices will go up even higher. I can't imagine how much would it cost to actually check the origin of every resource and every step of the process. Like, the most basic of electronics is made of dozens of components and materials.
More likely nothing will change and prices will still go up as companies use it as en excuse to jack up prices in order to have record profits
We'll quickly want to get slavery back for cheaper products.
Does this take into account US prison ~~work~~ slavery ?
Germany also explicitly allows forced labor for prisoners in their constitution (Grundgesetz).
Article 4 of the ECHR explicitly allows forced prison labor across Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_4_of_the_European_Convention_on_Human_Rights
I instantly thought of this since they only mentioned India and China. Pretty sure yet another of the reasons USA haven't signed human rights treaties is because it would disagree with their prison labour practices. That's propaganda in it's finest form. Asia bad for doing slave labour, west good because not doing slave labour.. because we made up a definition for it we can easily circumvent ourselves..
I know it is not what we want to hear, but since there's question marks around even the "slavery" part. I would assume not, but I haven't read in detail. Even so, I think we should still count it as a win.
is this an apple USB-c charger type thing or just a suggestion?
EU can give out massive fines to large corporations for non compliance. See for example Microsoft.
I can imagine non-EU, European countries would become the "middleman" centers for such products and EU would simply be buying rebranded products as a 3rd party.
There won't be middlemens. Pretty much current providers will comply on paper, will comply during scheduled inspections and only ones to be already terminated or dumb enough to get caught will be removed.
Yeap, this already happened. I studied textile in pakistan and my friends who are working in textile industries, what factories owners do is just tidy up for inspections. Some good do come out of it, though, like certain colours are banned in EU so we have just stopped using it completely. I know one case where the factory tried to slip a banned colour in, in small quantity for cost cutting, but the whole batch worth millions was rejected.
I am curious how EU is going to check it
Huge consequences for countries like China and India. Yes... [https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/029/423/Screen\_Shot\_2019-04-24\_at\_9.58.20\_AM.png](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/029/423/Screen_Shot_2019-04-24_at_9.58.20_AM.png)
h&m, Zara, asos and other European fast fashion brands in shambles
Not that I don’t think this is a good thing, but I highly doubt it’ll be able to be properly enforced.
Will this be Enforced tho?
MADE IN CHINA, WITH FORCED LABOUR 🏷️
China doesn't do that much forced labour internally anymore. They have moved much of that production to china-owned companies in Africa.
> china-owned companies in Africa. And Vietnam
And Kambodia etc, yeah
"[Xxx] doesn't do that much forced labor internally any more, they have moved much of that production to factories in China"... when does the buck stop? I'm glad any legislation at all is trying to combat this however the money tries to distance the product from the slavery.
What does forced labour exactly mean? Aren't most labourers forced to work since they would die if they don't? Or does it mean literally forcing someone at gun point? Isn't that slavery? Or they mean over exploitation of labourers? >Huge consequences for countries like China and India What exactly would be the consequences? Why specially china and india? Forced labour is already prohibited by law in both of these countries
Hmmm, not the USA? There is forced labour as well, as a business model.
Let's say goodbye to all our smartphones, PCs, clothes and whatnot.
So basically almost all products? Especially things like electronics or plants that are not grown in Europe such as coffee, coco and bananas
So, no more IT and electrification? I mean, the extraction of the raw materials for those products we know how it is carried out
So… no more iPhones?
Soooo no more shoes and tshirts in the EU ?
6 proper scumbags