The European Union is moving, in its glacially stately pace, toward addressing another vestige of slavery: the use of forced labor in production.

The Council of the EU on Tuesday approved a regulation that would forbid throughout the bloc’s 27 member states the sale of goods made with forced labor either within Europe or outside it.

That’s broader than the US’ ban on forced labor, which is primarily targeted at the People’s Republic of China’s use of Uighur forced labor. So far, so good. Unfortunately, the Council then wasted the effort.

The Council said the regulation will be applied three years and a day after it is published in the European Union’s official register.

There’s no reason for that much delay; it needn’t take that long to adjust supply chains, even by the bureaucrats of European businesses. Eighteen months to two years from enactment is all that’s really needed.

Then,

Investigations into forced labor within the bloc will be led by national governments, whose decisions will be binding on all EU members, the council said.

That’s the toothless part. A national government (Slovakia? Hungary? Germany?) that decides a region’s forced labor matter really isn’t by its own standards would bar all the other 26 member nations from objecting to that region’s use of forced labor as defined by any of those other member nations.