Click to expand Image Chairman of the EPP Group, Manfred Weber (C), during a plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, October 6, 2025. © 2025 Philipp von Ditfurth/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo On November 13, a European Parliament majority sold out rights protections to corporate interests in the course of negotiating amendments to the European Union’s landmark Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). It ripped through years of efforts to build comprehensive legislation that holds corporations accountable for human rights and environmental abuses in their global supply chains. In the negotiations, the European People’s Party (EPP) sided openly with far-right parties to create a majority toeing the demands of corporate lobbies for deregulation. Their proposed amendments mostly mirrored those of lobbyists, including from the fossil fuel industry, deleting climate transition plans and prohibiting EU member states from proposing better provisions when transposing the directive into national law. Leaning on the far-right has unfortunately become more frequent for the EPP, to the detriment of human rights guarantees.As the EU Commission, Council, and Parliament head into tripartite negotiations to finalize the Omnibus I amendments, the low bar already set by each of them risks making what remains of the CSDDD a mostly empty shell. The combined institutions’ positions could mean there would be no harmonized civil liability, no climate transition plans, limited access to justice for victims, and even when suppliers are involved in cases of severe abuses, the requirement for companies to disengage from those relationships will be optional if such a disengagement could substantially prejudice the company’s business interests.These decisions falsely pit human rights and environmental standards against competitiveness. In fact, a recent report by the UN Development Program and the World Benchmarking Alliance reveals a positive link between improved rights records of companies and “enhanced asset efficiency.” The report reinforces that human rights due diligence is a “strategic investment in resilience and long-term value” rather than an obstacle to competitiveness.EU institutions should spare no effort during the trilogue to protect the risk-based approach to due diligence across the supply chain, and to further strengthen the law by reintroducing civil liability at the European level. Failing again would dangerously normalize a global erosion of human rights standards at the hands of corporate lobbies.