1 March 2024
On Monday 26 February, SGI Europe’s Secretary General Valeria Ronzitti was invited to join the Clean Transition Dialogue on the Green Deal Infrastructure, chaired by European Commission Executive Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič. The meeting was attended by other EU stakeholders involved in the energy infrastructure such as ACER, CEER, Cen/Cenelec, ENTSO-E and G, the EU DSO Entity, EuropaCable, Hydrogen Europe, SmartenEU, SolarPower Europe, Wind Europe, BusinessEurope or the EIB.
Last September, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, launched active exchanges with industry and stakeholders through a Clean Transition Dialogue. SGI Europe was invited to join the latest session, which focused on building a smart and resilient sector integration infrastructure, taking into account energy, transport, water, waste, telecoms and housing.
Represented on this occasion by General Secretary Valeria Ronzitti, SGI Europe highlighted the need to develop holistic concepts in which electrification, decarbonised and renewable gases, heating/cooling, and transport solutions all have a role to play with their respective infrastructure. There is no “one-technology-solution”: increasing the cross-sectoral cooperation to unleash the true potential in all sectors, including industry, will be needed. Mrs Ronzitti underlined that the EU Green Deal can be the growth strategy for Europe towards an EU green single market if we connect the dots and join forces.
The role of social partners in the implementation phase of the Green Deal will be important. SGI Europe calls for their structural involvement to address appropriately the challenges of the world of work in this re-industrialisation process.
Contact: Henriette Gleau
On Friday 23 February, Alain Taccoen, chair of SGI Europe Sustainability Board, represented the association during the Clean Transition Dialogue on Critical Raw Materials. Other EU stakeholders involved were, amongst others, the ETUC, the EBRD, the European Raw Materials Alliance, Eurometaux, Deutsche Bank, T&E and Stellantis.
The aim of this discussion was to address the implementation of the Critical Raw Material Act, the relationship needed with third countries, the development of European expertise and the secondary raw material market. Mr Taccoen clarified that the strength lies in a strong and resilient circular economy concept with a structural recycling approach alongside waste prevention measures.
SGI Europe calls for developing national measures on circularity (as proposed by Art 25 of the Critical Raw Materials Act): a quick implementation of this measure will be needed to develop a circular economy for raw materials in the EU. Additionally, SGI Europe stressed the importance of faster permitting procedures for waste treatment plants to face the need to modernise and build new plants to improve electrical waste and electronic equipment.
Finally, SGI Europe proposed the idea of extending the concept of “EU Public Goods” to the use of raw material, through amongst others the development of joint purchasing of secondary raw materials.
Contact: Henriette Gleau
On Tuesday 27 February 2024, the European Commission presented a communication to boost the European industrial leadership in advanced materials, a key enabling technology highly relevant for the twin green and digital transition.
The strategy aims to enhance the EU's long-term competitiveness by ensuring the Union remains at the forefront of new material technologies, supporting development, testing and deployment capacities. The actions will also strengthen the EU's open strategic autonomy and economic security by reducing dependencies on critical materials by replacing them or supporting their recycling and reuse.
To do so, initiatives will be built along five main areas: strengthening the European research & innovation ecosystem on advanced materials; fast-tracking innovative materials to the market; increasing capital investment and access to financing; fostering the production and use of advanced materials; and creating a Technology Council for advanced materials to advise on the steering of this initiative.
Advanced materials are intentionally designed and engineered to display superior performance or special functions, which can be developed with unprecedented speed thanks to today's scientific understanding and computing power. They are fundamental, for example, for innovation in energy, electronics, construction, and mobility, and therefore crucial for the green and digital transition.
The demand for advanced materials is expected to increase significantly in the coming years to, amongst others, produce renewable energy, batteries, zero-emission buildings, semiconductors, medicines and medical devices.
Contact: Benoît Cassorla
Three years after the adoption of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), Eurofound published a report which reviews the quality of the social partners’ involvement in the ongoing implementation of reforms and investments funded by that initiative. It also examines the quality of their involvement in preparing the 2023 national reform programmes (NRPs) as part of the European Semester.
The RRF Regulation requires the social partners to be consulted in the preparation and implementation of the RRF reform and investment plans. Nonetheless, this report finds that, in 2023, the quality of their involvement in both processes continues to be uneven across countries and depends on several factors.
In line with previous findings on the implementation of the NRPs, in most Member States, insufficient time for consultations has been identified by social partners as limiting proper and meaningful consultation. Similarly, the quality of exchanges with national authorities is generally assessed negatively. Social partners are dissatisfied with their limited ability to influence the implementation of the NRPs, either because of time constraints or owing to a lack of appropriate information or feedback from the national authorities.
The report finally states that the recommendation to strengthen social dialogue in the EU adopted by the Council on 12 June 2023 also requires the systematic, meaningful and timely involvement of the social partners and therefore should receive greater priority in the development of employment and social policies and any other relevant policies during the second phase of the implementation of the RRF, which will run until the end of 2026.
Contact: Guillaume Afellat
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