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.

During a September speech, European Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht said a final version would emerge by the end of this year, a timeline revealed as overly optimistic. It is speculated that lobbying by German mineral extraction firms played a part, but no official reason for the delay has yet to be offered. Another contributing factor is that an impact assessment report, which must be finalized before any legislative proposal can move forward, was rejected by commissioners, says Dynda Thomas, a partner at law firm Squire Sanders and leader of its conflict minerals team

“The impact assessment was ready, but was deemed not enough,” Judith Sargentini, a member of European Parliament said in a statement supporting that suspicion. “I don't know why, but they will have to do their homework again.”

The Commission is now expected to present its impact assessment into the new conflict minerals law by the end of 2013, but no proposal is likely to be adopted until February or March 2014 at the earliest.

“This is an interesting development and indicates the level of comment and input the EU Commission is receiving on this proposal,” Thomas says. “When the proposed rule does come out, it will be nearly final for all intents and purposes. The process will be unlike the U.S. process in which a proposed rule is often changed significantly after it is commented upon by interested parties. For the EU rule, the comment and lobbying is done at the front end. That underscores the importance of making concerns known now, before the proposed rule is issued.”

Thomas has more on this development on Squire Sanders' Conflict Minerals Law website.