Federal Council wants counter-proposal to the Responsible Business Initiative
Keystone-SDA
The federal government wants to counter the new Responsible Business Initiative with an indirect counter-proposal. The future regulations should be based on new provisions currently being discussed in the European Union. The national government does not want to go any further.
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On Wednesday, it set out the general direction of travel in dealing with the popular initiative “In favour of responsible large companies – for the protection of people and the environment”, as it announced. The specific legislative changes planned by the government initially remained unclear.
According to the communiqué, Swiss companies should respect human rights and protect the environment in their business activities. At the same time, they should remain competitive at home and abroad.
The initiative was submitted in May. It calls for Switzerland to orientate itself towards international guidelines and EU regulations when it comes to corporate responsibility and wants to write this principle into the Federal Constitution.
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Swiss campaigners launch another ‘responsible business initiative’
However, the initiators originally had the EU Supply Chain Directive of 2024 in mind, as can be seen from the explanatory notes to the initiative text on their website. The EU member states have since agreed on a significant relaxation of the provisions. The Swiss government has now also referred to this.
In June, a majority of EU countries voted in favour of only companies with more than 5,000 employees falling under the Human Rights Protection Act instead of the current 1,000. In addition, the turnover limit of €450 million ($422 million) in annual net turnover is to be raised to €1.5 billion. The deal is still pending in the EU Parliament.
Translated from German by DeepL/jdp
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