NCP EU dinner, Paris 17th June 2015
On 17 June 2015, the Netherlands’ National Contact Point (NCP) for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises hosted a dinner in preparation for the Netherlands’ Presidency of the EU in the first half of 2016. The event was organised jointly with the Dutch permanent representative to the OECD and the International Trade Policy and Economic Governance Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Guests, including 17 staff members from 14 EU NCPs, were treated to several distinguished speakers, such as Richard Howitt (Member of the European Parliament and specialist in the area of responsible business conduct), Pedro Ortún, (principal adviser, DG Growth, European Commission), Noé van Hulst (Dutch Permanent Representative to the OECD), Roel Nieuwenkamp (chair of the OECD working party on responsible business conduct) and members of the Dutch NCP, Maartje van Putten and Herman Mulder.
All speakers urged the OECD to strengthen the functioning of the National
Contact Points to achieve better performance, and to find ways of convincing
more countries to adhere to the Guidelines.
• Marjan Schippers (Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs) set out the Dutch
Presidency’s aims and priorities with regard to corporate social responsibility
(CSR): promoting responsibility in the supply chain (EU external dimension) and
using the EU aid and trade agenda to scale up the private sector’s voluntary
agreements on international CSR. CSR should be an integral part of multinational
enterprises’ regular operations.
• Pedro Ortún (review of the EU’s CSR strategy) would like more European CEOs
to become involved in CSR and called for better implementation of European CSR
policy. He also suggested replacing the term CSR with ‘responsible business
conduct’ (RBC).
• The Dutch NCP members underscored their wish for accountability mechanisms
in the financial sector to be endorsed, and for product prices to include
external costs (e.g. impact on the environment and working conditions).
The OECD played a key role in shaping the G7’s aims in the area of supply chain responsibility. It is now time for the G20 to embrace these principles.
