Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-12-Speech-1-095"
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"en.20070312.18.1-095"2
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".
Mr President, honourable Members, it is indeed true to say that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is marching ahead in Europe, and last year’s communication from the Commission triggered a great wave of activities and new ideas.
The Commission calls on Europe’s businesses to make CSR a European brand and to compete for the best ideas. We are convinced that a European company must be one that acknowledges its own social responsibility and acts accordingly. That is something on which the Commission and your House are in complete agreement.
It is because CSR can make a great contribution to sustainable development and enhance Europe’s potential for innovation and its competitiveness that it is closely tied in with our strategy for growth and employment, the object of which is not only to create more jobs but also, and primarily, to create better ones. We are talking here not about short-term successes or apparently favourable quarterly results, but rather about the need for our companies to adjust in the long term to the changed conditions under which we have to compete in the world as a whole.
Favourable social conditions may well be an important factor in competition, but producing them is not a responsibility for policy-makers alone; businesses have a responsibility of their own, and it goes beyond mere obedience to the law. They are responsible for the social climate, for the environment, for equality of opportunity, for training, for innovation and for structural change; to sum up, they are responsible for the people who work for them, and for the location where they are based.
The Commission welcomes Mr Howitt’s report, which is evidence of deep knowledge and competence and not only essentially endorses the Commission’s aim of strengthening CSR in Europe, but also makes an important contribution towards achieving it. I certainly agree that the debate should aim to achieve concrete results; that the multi-stakeholder approach should embrace all the interested parties and groups affected; and that the whole process should be even better integrated into the Lisbon Strategy.
You will be aware that the Commission believes that the openings for regulation in this area are limited. We do not believe that an enterprise’s culture can be imposed from above or standardised by legislation, and that is why the Commission has been unwilling to take a decision in favour of proposing a regulation on CSR or the standardisation of it at European level.
If something, somewhere, has to be regulated; if we, by reason of our political responsibility have to insist on businesses doing something, then we have to summon up the courage to enact the relevant legislation, which must be specific and practically relevant to the area in question, but corporate social responsibility is, by definition, something that goes beyond companies’ obligations under the law and is more than that which we lay down in regulations.
We want to support businesses and to encourage them to make use of the internationally recognised instruments, which are available in great numbers. The Commission is also supporting CSR in the global context, for example, through the EU-Africa Business Forum, brought into existence by my fellow-Commissioner Mr Michel, in which representatives of businesses from both continents met in November 2006 to discuss social responsibility.
The Commission is continuing to discuss with developing countries the progress being made in implementing the basic standards of the International Labour Organisation, and, in Europe, we are promoting the further development of relevant instruments within the various sectors, alongside multi-sectoral initiatives.
My fellow-Commissioner Mr Špidla and I are meeting more and more business people who are getting committed to and involved in making Europe a front-runner where CSR is concerned, and who see it as putting their businesses at a definite advantage on the market. In the short time in which it has been in existence, the European CSR Alliance has set in motion some impressive and exemplary initiatives, and far-sighted managers and investors have long known that a company with a good record of CSR is usually a successful one, as, indeed, is evident from the prices at which such businesses’ shares are quoted on stock exchanges."@en1
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