The European Commission’s legislative proposal on conflict minerals, expected any day now, has instead been put on hold until next year.
In March 2013, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade initiated a three-month public consultation to shape EU law on the responsible sourcing of minerals from the war-torn Congo. Since then, indications are the European version would likely cover a wider geography (extending into Latin America) than U.S. disclosure requirements mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act. The list of covered minerals, flagged as enabling violent militias in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was expected to remain the same as the U.S. law (tantalum, tin, tungsten, gold). The EU approach, however, was expected to target smelters, rather than the suppliers and end-users the U.S. law zeroes in on.
