Talking Europe – ‘Companies must unlearn bad habits’: European Parliament Vice-President Heidi Hautala

Issued on: 14/07/2023 – 13:04

Asked about the Nature Restoration Law, which aims to restore 20 percent of the EU’s land and sea area by 2030 and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050, Hautala says: “We all made a lot of compromises to support the outcome, but it is there, and we can continue now. We realise how important nature protection is to combating climate change – they are very much interlinked.”

For Hautala, the alignment of the conservatives and the hard right against the landmark vote in the EU parliament shows that “unfortunately, European political parties are not immune to spreading disinformation and fake news, because there was a lot of fake news around this proposal. In Finland, the story by the right-wing parties is that even Father Christmas would need to move away from Finland if the EU would put in place this law. Of course, Father Christmas continues to live in northern Finland!”

A staunch supporter of Ukraine, Hautala is a member of an International Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of War. “Importantly, President Zelensky talks about ecocide, which is something to be considered alongside genocide, which is the massive destruction of the environment with intent,” Hautala says. “I think it would be very important to see how Russia can be made accountable for these kinds of war crimes. We are also talking to the best experts in sustainable development to see how they could present a kind of a roadmap for Ukraine to build back in a sustainable way after the war.”

On the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, which was adopted by the European Parliament on June 1, Hautala states: “Poverty, climate change and nature destruction are all happening on such a massive scale that we need companies to be part of the change. The EU is the first region that is putting in place mandatory requirements for larger companies to do just that; to make sure that they don’t have human rights violations, child labour and deforestation in their value chains and in their services.” Hautala goes on: “Companies must unlearn the old bad habits of not taking into account human rights and the environment, and learn new habits. There will be guidance, and there already is guidance from international organisations. I can tell you that the best companies have already been doing this for the last 10 years.”

Hautala also touches on the woes of the Finnish coalition government, following the parliamentary election this spring which resulted in a tie-up between the conservative NCP and the Eurosceptic, anti-immigration Finns Party. “The difference in terms of values between the Party of the Finns and almost every other party in Finland is so sharp that, for me, it’s impossible to think that there could be in a governing party a finance minister that has spoken out in a very rude way about people of another colour or ethnicity, or even fantasising about violence. It is unacceptable, and it damages the reputation of our country every day now,” she concludes.

Programme prepared by Isabelle Romero, Perrine Desplats, Sophie Samaille and Feodora Douplitzky-Lunati