The European Commission has set out a new strategy against trafficking in human beings, refreshing the framework that coordinates member state law enforcement, victim protection and prevention across the bloc. The strategy addresses recruitment that has moved online, the exploitation of migration routes, and the labour exploitation that sits inside legal supply chains.
The economic edge of the file is employer and platform liability. Each tightening of due diligence in sectors like agriculture, construction, care and logistics changes compliance costs for companies that rely on subcontracted migrant labour, which is most of them. The strategy stage does not change the law, but in the Commission’s system the strategy is the document the later proposals cite.
It also belongs in the politics file for a simpler reason: trafficking is one of the few dossiers where the Commission, the Parliament and even the sceptical member states publicly agree, which makes it a useful vehicle for the migration machinery the bloc argues about everywhere else.