Upcoming event: Roundtable at European Parliament on DRC conflict minerals

On May 26th, SOMO, on behalf of the makeITfair campaign, and Judith Sargentini, Member of European Parliament for the Greens/European Free Alliance, are organising a roundtable on the issue of conflict minerals from the DRC. The aim of this roundtable is to share input with regard to possible new EU regulations concerning the issue of conflict minerals from the DRC.

The roundtable will be held at the European Parliament in Brussels. The meeting will include a presentation on the lessons learned from the legislative initiative in the United States (Dodd Frank sec. 1502), as well as the perspectives of Congolese civil society on the effects of the international efforts to curb the trade in conflict minerals, and the way forward in Europe.

The roundtable follows various initiatives concerning DRC conflict minerals. MEP Judith Sargentini has raised the issue of conflict minerals and the DRC in European Parliament. She has filed a motion for resolution, together with 32 other MEPs from six different groups, that calls for the development of a legal initiative similar to the Dodd Frank act in the US regarding conflict minerals from the DRC. makeITfair published the report Voices from the inside in October 2010 on the local views on the mining sector reform in eastern DRC. This report, as well as many others, concluded that there is a need for increased Congolese involvement in the on-going efforts to curb the trade of ‘conflict minerals’ from the region.