By Kate Abnett and Virginia Furness
LONDON (Reuters) -TotalEnergies and Siemens have called on European governments to abolish one of the EU’s flagship corporate sustainability laws in order to boost the continent’s competitiveness, a letter seen by Reuters shows.
TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne and his Siemens AG counterpart Roland Busch wrote the letter to French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, on behalf of 46 European companies.
Abolishing the rules would be a “clear and symbolic signal to European and international companies that the governments and the Commission are really engaged to restore competitiveness in Europe,” the letter dated October 6 said.
Siemens and Total did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The European Union’s corporate sustainability due diligence directive was adopted last year and requires companies to fix human rights and environmental issues within their supply chains, or face fines of 5% of global turnover.
It has become one of the most politically contested parts of Europe’s green agenda, and Brussels is now negotiating changes to simplify the rules for European companies, after pushback from Germany and France – as well as the United States and Qatar, and companies including Exxon Mobil (XOM.N).
Siemens and Total’s calls to scrap the rules entirely go further than plans already being negotiated by EU lawmakers and countries to scale them back and exempt more companies from the law.
(Reporting by Kate Abnett and Virginia Furness; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
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