EU and US stakeholders work on strengthening due diligence cooperation

Among others, the exchange focused on promoting labour rights in supply chains, including the elimination of forced labour, and the importance of multistakeholder engagement in trade policy.

At this event, over 400 stakeholders representing various industries and NGOs met with EU and US government representatives to discuss recent developments, potential areas of cooperation, and the role stakeholders can play in implementing effective due diligence in supply chains. They also discussed legislative and non-legislative initiatives in the EU and US addressing labour rights in global supply chains, as well as ways to strengthen stakeholder capacity through sharing best practices to conduct due diligence. The discussions were aided by the examination of a number of case studies of due diligence practices, including in the minerals/technology, cotton/textiles and cocoa/chocolate industries. The conclusions from today’s event will feed into the next Ministerial meeting of the Trade and Technology Council, which will take place before the summer in Sweden.

The event took place under the work strand ‘Trade and Labour’ of Working Group 10 of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council, which focuses on ‘Global Trade Challenges’. This was agreed in the Paris-Saclay Joint Statement of the Trade and Technology Council of 16 May 2022. The EU-US Trade and Technology Council serves as a forum for the EU and US to coordinate approaches to key global trade, economic, and technology issues and to deepen transatlantic trade and economic relations based on shared values. Its work is organised around 10 working groups, covering issues such as standards, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, export controls and global trade challenges.

Next steps

A report of the roundtable will be published in due course.

For more information

Roundtable prospectus

Futurium

EU-US TTC

EU-US Trade relations