Commission: keep the CSR voluntary

By Ariel Alexovich

Date: 15/12/05

Compliance with ethical standards is optional for European businesses - and the European Commission would prefer to keep it that way.

"Instead of regulating CSR (corporate social responsibility), we are asking the business side to make the voluntary commitment," said an official from the Commission's health and consumer protection directorate-general, speaking at a conference in Brussels sponsored by the Foreign Trade Association (FTA).

FTA President Ferry den Hoed said the EU should show greater commitment to making ethical commerce more widespread.

The Commission's employment department helped fund the ethical commerce conference, which was presented as a part of the FTA's Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI). But den Hoed said that while the BSCI needed and appreciated the Commission's financial assistance, the FTA did not want the EU to become entangled in new ethical compliance legislation.

"It was important to us to show that commerce does not need legal regulations in order to deal with irregularities in its supply chains, but that the solution of existing problems can just as well be brought about on a voluntary basis," he said.

He said that instead of legislation, he would like to see the EU create and fund more ethical commerce-promoting projects in developing countries.

"In locations like China or India, European commerce will not be able to support each and every supplier throughout the country," said den Hoed. "In my opinion it is here that politics has to come in - in particular development policy...in order to improve the social behaviour of suppliers in the developing countries. For this we [need] not only a lot of staying power, but also considerable financial resources."

Article forms part of a special report on 'Ethical commerce'

European Commission: DG Enterprise and Industry: Corporate social responsibility http://ec.europa.eu/comm/enterprise/csr/index_en.htm

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