China-EU CSR International Forum
Beijing, 7 September 2005
Speech
Mr Vladimir Špidla
Member of the European Commission
responsible for Employment, Social Affairs
and Equal Opportunities
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In our globalised economy, goods and capital, if not persons, circulate with an intensity and a speed unequalled in the past.
China is a major actor of this world economy. Its dynamism, the entrepreneurship of its population, its millennial history, and the entire world admires this. That also involves a role and responsibilities in the "governance" of the world economy. In this context, the dialogue between China and the EU is essential and this is why this sino-European Forum is a symbolic and important event, and I thank very much Csr-Europe for having co-organised it with WTO Tribune and for inviting me.
Consumers, everywhere in the world, observe Chinese companies, which gain weight from day to day, with the same attention they reserve to the behaviour of European companies.
They want to be competitive, while fulfilling the increasing requirements of consumers and the various actors involved in the territories where they produce or sell.
These requirements do not cease finding an echo, and no European company can disregard them: respect for the environment and promotion of sustainable development; respect of the person's basic rights to work and essential civil liberties, included in the Statement of ILO relating to the fundamental principles and rights to work adopted in 1998; protection of human health; respect of cultural diversity; promotion of fair trade with the least developed countries.
Whereas our fellow-citizens often have the feeling of an inequitable division of the results of globalisation, in Europe and in the rest of the world, the voluntary initiatives of the companies are of a considerable importance.
This is why "Corporate social responsibility" has an important place in the European political debate since a decade ago. I am delighted to see that the Chinese companies have just launched a "manifesto", which shows that we advance, step by step, towards a genuine world community which will not be composed of States, but also of the companies, of social partners and of individuals.
Let me say you some words about the major principles which guide the European approach to "Social Responsibility".
First, social responsibility is neither philanthropy, nor public relations. It is not a means for companies to make publicity around some gadget-initiatives, but for leading a genuine long term policy.
The company was in the past accountable only to its shareholders; today it has to answer of its acts to all of its "stakeholders"; it has to grow in harmony with the world which surrounds it, and to build a reciprocally beneficial relation with all those which make it possible – workers, suppliers, customers, inhabitants of the cities and of the countryside where it produces.
