Proposal for a Regulation setting up a Union system for supply chain due diligence self-certification of responsible importers of tin, tantalum and tungsten, their ores, and gold originating in conflict affected and high-risk areas

Orgalime is very concerned about the results of the plenary vote which significantly diverges from the European Commission’s proposal.  The engineering industry supports the aim to sever the connection between the mining of minerals and the funding of armed conflict. 

However, the narrowly adopted amendment 155 would introduce obligations for downstream companies that are not workable in practice and would thereby not contribute to improving the situation in third countries.

The vote in the plenary contradicts the European Commission’s proposal focused on an upstream approach based on self-certification, which Orgalime supports. In contrast to the Dodd-Frank Act (DFA), which has incurred tedious and very often unverifiable reporting obligations for downstream companies, upstream regulation would create the necessary transparency in the supply chain.

Orgalime calls for a more informed debate about the effects of regulation at the different levels of the supply chain, as this will demonstrate that the careful and pragmatic approach of the European Commission has better chances to bring positive effects for the local population than a regime that is not feasible to implement [more in download]