On 3 June, a group of 53 Members of the European Parliament (MEP) [...] wrote a letter to Commissioner Sinkevičius, Hogan, Reynders, and Urpilainen endorsing civil society’s approach to rethinking the global textile value chain...

Following the announcement of a new ‘comprehensive strategy for textiles’ by the European Commission, in April a collective of 70 civil society organisations proposed their own non-official ‘shadow strategy’ outlining the measures that the EU could take to contribute to fairer and more sustainable global Textile, Garments, Leather and Footwear (TGLF) sector. In today’s letter, MEPs “warmly welcome this civil society proposal” and “invite [the Commission] to follow the approach of this civil society proposal in the development of the comprehensive EU textile strategy”.

The civil society vision for a comprehensive EU Textile Strategy contains recommendations including:

• Ensure companies are legally obligated to take responsibility for not only their own activities but their whole supply chain by applying an EU due diligence law across all sectors, including specific requirements for the TGLF sector. Signing a multi-stakeholder partnership should not exempt business from responsibility.
• Stricter environmental rules.., as well as meaningful measures to promote transparency.
• Ensuring brands and retailers are legally obliged to honour contracts and end the culture of unfair purchasing practices...
• Make governance reforms and better law enforcement in producing countries part of the solution...
• Through trade policy, use EU market power to leverage sustainable production practices...