Qatar warns it will halt gas supplies to Europe if fined under EU due diligence law – POLITICO
Qatar warns it will halt gas supplies to Europe if fined under EU due diligence law – POLITICO
“I’m not bluffing” in LNG threat, Qatari Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi tells the FT.
The EU's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, which entered into force in July, allows for fines of up to 5 percent of a company’s annual global revenue if the management fails to address adverse human rights or environmental impacts.
So basically' I don't care about human rights or the environment, I just care about profits and will extort anyone who attempts to impact the latter'. The sooner we move to renewables and away from being dependent on twats like this the better.
Human rights don't exist. The environment is there for humans to exploit; think about that when you drive over a paved road or when you eat food. The problem is, for the EU, is that Qatar like most countries don't think human rights exists, so basically, the EU is taxing them over a made up concept. Who or what determines a human right? If the EU thinks that their values be attached to imports, then so be it. Business is business.
Like most everything else the concept "human rights" is a social construct. But arguing that just because something is social construct it doesn't exist will just confuse and piss off people. Because to them, the concept is very real.
On the global scene, human rights aren't worth a damn ... at the moment at least. But the EU making human rights violations expensive, that can change this. Because if Qatar can't sell us its LNG then where can they? Sure China took over for Europe on consuming the Russian fossil fuels. But can China also use all the Qatari LNG? And at what price?
My point is: if the EU says something is important to them, and if you want to do business with the EU you can either decide it's important for you too or earn less, then it's going to be important for you pretty soon. Just look at the GDPR and cookies, a lot of companies got real busy, real quick, changing their attitude to personal information.
Human Rights do exist, and are protected at a International level: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_human_rights_law
The EU explicitly references these in their documentation: https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/7a3e9980-5fda-4760-8f25-bc5571806033_en?filename=240719_CSDD_FAQ_final.pdf
Qatar even has a committee specifically created to oversee Human rights, although it's effectiveness is debatable: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Human_Rights_Committee_(Qatar)