The situation is stalled. The European Parliament gets active on the matter by publishing a resolution on CSR which makes clear its reservations concerning the European Commission’s Communication, and that is firstly approved by the Employment and Social Affairs committee and afterwards passed by all political groups in the parliament in March 2007.

The resolution, entitled "CSR: a new partnership" makes it very clear that the Commission must re-think it’s position on CSR and involve all stakeholders in the process.

ECCJ together with other relevant CSOs welcomes the EP resolution and pressures the Commission to take signifcant step to address the issues included in the resolution.

After comprehensive research, and to follow-up on the EP resolution, ECCJ is organising a conference for May 29th to launch a series of new concrete recommendations to the EU to improve the accountability of its companies’ operations abroad. The conference "Smart regulation: legislative opportunities to improve corporate accountability at the European Union" will be hosted by the Party of European Socialist at the European Parliament in Brussels.

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In 2002, taking into account the results of a consultation process launched the previous year, the Commission published a “Communication concerning Corporate Social Responsibility, a business contribution to sustainable development".

In that communication the Commission launched the Multi-stakeholders Forum (MSF), convening representatives of employers’ organisations, business groups, trade unions and NGOs to discuss they way forward for the CSR folder at EU level.

Read here about this process

In 2006, four years later, the whole EU CSR process which began in 2001 and culminated with the publication of a new communication by the European Commission summarizing the results of the Multi-stakeholders Forum (MSF), is seen as a loss of time for most NGOs as we feel that the weakness of the communication doesn’t add any value to improve CSR practices. All NGOs that have been participating in the MSF walk out of the process asking the Commission to take steps to truly include all stakeholders’ voices to the debate.

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In 2001, forseeing Corporate Social Responsibility as a likely contributor to the strategic goal decided in Lisbon to become “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and a greater social cohesion”, the Commission issued a first document (green paper) on CSR.

Read here how the beginnings of the CSR debate took place at the EU level.