Response of the Prague Security Studies Institute to the European Commission’s Call for Feedback on ''Effectively Banning Products Produced, Extracted or Harvested with Forced Labor''

PSSI / 27 Nov 2022

Today, PSSI offered feedback to a legislative proposal from the European Commission aimed at tackling the global scourge of forced labor. Whereas the proposal currently focuses on products produced using forced labor, PSSI wishes to stress to the Commission the benefits and importance of investigating, tracking, and banning the companies behind these products.

Furthermore, the continued access of these companies to European capital markets is unconscionable and critically unaddressed. Currently, millions of European retail investors are unwittingly funding forced labor corporate abusers to the tune of billions of euros annually – a reality which PSSI, in cooperation with the Coalition for a Prosperous America, can empirically prove is underway involving literally scores of Chinese companies.

PSSI, therefore, urges that this feedback be reviewed and given its deserved attention and diligence in the upcoming legislative debates by EU lawmakers, in order to hone the proposal into a comprehensive and just policy mechanism. Read the feedback, written by PSSI's Project Assistant Elias Sköld, below.