Plenary focus - March

We did it! A fruitful cooperation between civil society organisations and progressive forces in parliaments and ministries has succeeded. The conflict minerals regulation vote on Thursday will establish mandatory provisions for European enterprises to apply due diligence in their sourcing of gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten. The goal is to end the business model of the warlords. This also comes just weeks after Donald Trump announced plans to scrap a similar provision in the Dodd-Frank Act. This is the correct response from Europe.

To listen carefully and to reconcile divergent views were not one of the personal goals of the former EPP rapporteur on this file: ‘He who works poorly must stay behind’. This regulation came into force only recently, but European parties had been pushing for significant changes for many months. They want more political freedoms and, at the same time, a real political framework that corresponds with their political doctrine.