1 October 2021
On 30 September, SGI Europe submitted its response to the European Commission’s draft on the Strategic Foresight Report’s Resilience Dashboards. The Dashboards aims to provide a holistic assessment of resilience in EU Member States and identify their strength and weaknesses to make better EU policies, looking at the social and economic, green, digital, and geopolitical dimensions.
During the last Sustainability Board meeting on 23 September, SGI Europe exchanged on the context, goals and content of the Resilience Dashboards with Dimitri Lorenzani, member of cabinet of the European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, whilst informing members on the content of the new Strategic Foresight Report 2021 published on 8 September 2021.
Mr Lorenzani explained that the widened scope of the Strategic Foresight Report (SFR) and the Resilience Dashboards can influence the shaping of EU policies, such as the EU Green Deal and the Next Generation EU, when well-established. He also highlighted that the Dashboards are a visual complementary tool in the making and an important first step towards going beyond the GDP and identify better ways to measure wellbeing in society and the economy.
SGI Europe welcomes this timely recognition: the COVID-19 pandemic clearly highlighted the extent to which our current indicators are falling short to measure the growth, prosperity and wealth of our societies, whilst SGIs and public services have demonstrated their pivotal role in ensuring the continuity and resilience of the EU socio-economic model.
SGI Europe also calls for their better integration into the EU policy-making processes. The Dashboards and the SFR could be an integral part of the monitoring of the implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) and ensure that plans and projects aim to target long-term vulnerabilities and challenges at the national level rather than short-sighted gains and returns.
You can consult our full response here.
Contact: Henriette Gleau
On Monday 27 September, the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association (BICA) organised a high-level conference on “Just Transition and industrial modernisation in Bulgaria”, addressing the balance between climate action, industrial modernisation and just transition in Bulgaria.
The event featured the keynote participation of Frans Timmermans, European Commission Executive Vice-President for the EU Green Deal. The event also welcomed several members of the Bulgarian government, including Andrey Zhivkov (Minister of Energy), Atanas Pekanov (Deputy Prime Minister for EU Funds Management), and Galab Donev (Deputy Prime Minister for Economic and Social Policies and Minister of Labour and Social Policy). SGI Europe was represented at this event by Elmar Thyen, chair of SGI Europe's Energy Task Force.
Addressing the opening session, Mr Thyen highlighted that the success of the energy and climate transition lies in a balanced approach where the economic, social, and environmental dimensions all find their places. He explained that remaining in the old position will always lead to difficulties in the end: it is therefore advisable to anticipate and prepare for these changes. Additionally, Mr Thyen pointed out that one way to reach a just transition in the energy sector is via a socially acceptable energy taxation framework which takes into account the most vulnerable by introducing a social tax fund. Mr Thyen called for Mr Frans Timmermans to include EU social partners in the development of the newly introduced EU Social Climate Fund that was presented with the publication of the Fit for 55 Package in July.
Concluding the event, European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans delivered a clear message to the participants and panellists: coal has no future, and called on Bulgaria to take up the challenge, prepare its economy for an energy transition and its workforce from a bottom-up approach to meet the challenge by combining the climate, economic and social policies for a sustainable future.
Contact: Henriette Gleau
On 29 September, in the context of the Diversity Now Conference organised by UDES, UNIPSO and BRUXEO on making workplaces in social enterprises more diverse and inclusive, SGI Europe General Secretary Valeria Ronzitti participated in the panel “Social dialogue, a lever for more diversity in social enterprises?”
Speaking about concrete actions taken by SGI Europe to promote diversity through social dialogue, she highlighted that one of core objectives of the EU social partners is to address diversity in the workplace. She mentioned the EU social partners’ autonomous framework agreements which aim at directly encouraging employers and trade unions to address core labour market issues via joint activities or by updating or negotiating collective agreements. Expanding on the latter, she specifically referred to the framework agreements on inclusive labour markets, on youth employment and on active ageing and for an intergenerational approach.
Ms Ronzitti also highlighted the importance of the toolkit for gender equality in practice, which is accessible online and encompasses more than 100 best practices. These practices come from our members and highlight how they chose to promote equality between men and women at the workplace.
When it comes to challenges in the implementation of those abovementioned agreements, she pointed to weak structures and lack of experience in social dialogue and national level, which exhibit an important divide in Europe in terms of capacity of organisations.
However, the General Secretary reiterated that EU projects aiming at capacity building are powerful tools to support Social Dialogue and the implementation of EU-level Framework Agreements. She finally emphasised that the promotion of diversity and inclusion at the workplace is only possible through structural changes, which are best achieved through the involvement of social partners.
Contact: Antonio Astolfi
On 29 September 2021, the European Commission presented its Annual Report on Migration and Asylum, together with the ‘Renewed EU action plan against migrant smuggling’ and the ‘Communication on the application of the Employers Sanctions Directive’.
In the challenging international context underlined in the report, SGI Europe welcomes the recognition of the need to heavily potentiate the European migration and asylum capacities and tools, to foster sustainable and safe legal pathways, operational support to Member States and enhanced cooperation with third countries.
SGI Europe believes that the key challenges in the implementation of the Employers Sanctions Directive are related to increasing the access to information and clarity of the procedures, as well as allocating the necessary resources for the competent institutions and improve their coordination. In this sense, we also welcome the objective of the Renewed EU action plan against migrant smuggling to break the business model of smugglers for deterring irregular migration and fight labour abuses.
SGI Europe supports the Action Plan on Integration and Inclusion 2021-2027 which plays a key role in supporting Member States, through adequate funding, in tackling migration-related social inequalities, which were further accentuated by the COVID crisis, including better access to healthcare and housing, early childhood education, and skills assessment and validation. SGI Europe will continue to promote a multi-stakeholder structured cooperation to ensure the success of the integration actions on the ground, as we committed to do in the Renewed European Partnership on Integration, signed by the European Commission and the European Social and Economic Partners on 7 September 2020.
SGI Europe considers that the upcoming Skills and Talent Package within the New Pact on Asylum and Migration is relevant in the perspective of the economic and social recovery. SGI Europe believes that the Skills and Talent Package needs a dedicated monitoring and evaluation framework with specific and measurable qualitative objectives and indicators, to offer it long-term vision and transparency.
Contact: Stefan Enica
On 30 September 2021, the European Commission started an infringement procedure against 19 Member States for not transposing the Open Data Directive into their national laws. The concerned Member States have now 2 months to respond to the letter and take the necessary measures.
In 2019, the Directive (EU) 2019/1024 on open data and the re-use of public sector information, so-called Open Data Directive, replaced the previously applicable Public Sector Information (PSI) Directive. The Member States had to transpose the directive into their national laws by 17 July 2021. As the objective of the revision was to encourage EU countries to make as much information available for reuse as possible, the final text of the Directive, to the detriment of many of our members, expanded the scope also to the data held by public undertakings.
SGI Europe closely followed the legislative procedure, and you can read our full position here. Generally, SGI Europe expressed concerns regarding the unequal treatment of private and public undertakings. The decision of the legislator to leave the private companies outside the scope of the Directive is particularly regrettable. This is even more pertinent in the liberalised sectors, such as postal services, water, energy, transport, where private and public undertakings compete with each other on the same market, and the obligation of sharing data held only by the public undertakings (free of charge or for marginal costs) poses serious competition law concerns.
SGI Europe suggested that in the transposition phase, Member States would take into account the principle of reciprocity in order to ensure a level playing field between public and private undertakings and marginal costs’ regulations.
Contact: Manca Pocivavsek
During this last week of September, extensive exchanges between social partners and the European Commission took place, with the internal meeting of SGI Europe Social Affairs Board (SAB), the Social Dialogue Committee (SDC) and the consultation on the future Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy (ASGS).
The SAB meeting was an important opportunity for members to take stock of the key legislative initiatives put forward by the European Commission. Members also reiterated their comments and remarks regarding the future initiative of the European Commission on “possible actions addressing the challenges related to working conditions in platform work”, for which the second stage of the consultation of the social partners was concluded on 15 September 2021.
On 27 September, during the SDC, EU cross-industry social partners jointly called on the European Commission’s DG Employment to organise a dedicated meeting on the future communication on social dialogue, expected in 2022 and which should address a review of sectoral social dialogue and a dedicated framework to support social partners’ agreements. Such a dedicated consultation would be essential to make sure the communication purpose fits with the EU social partners priorities and bring forward new support measures for social partners, particularly on the implementation of autonomous agreements.
The ASGS consultation, held on 28 September, brought forward a new opportunity to initiate an exchange with the European Commission on the future review of the EU economic governance and the Stability and Growth Pact. This review should be initiated in Autumn 2021, and the European Commission already announced its intention to build consensus between Member States and important stakeholders in order to make the economic rules less complex and better fit in order to favour productive public investments.
Finally, EU social partners took stock of the state of consultations of their members in the context of the development of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans. The overall assessment is quite negative so far, as many Member States did not take the time for dedicated social partners hearing and consultations in the preparation of the Plans. Social Partners expressed concerns that this could result in a less efficient implementation of the social reforms and investments, and they called for the European Commission to use the means at its disposal to call on Member States to involve national social partners in the rolling-out of the national recovery and resilience plans.
Contact: Guillaume Afellat
On Monday 27 September 2021, the IMCO Committee considered the amendments to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA).
Regarding the DMA, rapporteur Andreas Schwab (EPP, DE) opened the floor with a presentation of his views on the progress of finding a common position with the different political groups, especially regarding the inclusion of the national authorities, the list of core platform services, the presumption on the gatekeepers and the rules and prohibitions for them. Furthermore, he expressed optimism regarding their meeting with shadow rapporteurs that will take place next week.
The Shadow rapporteur for the S&D group, MEP Evelyne Gebhardt (DE), explained that they do agree on the text of the proposal to some extent, although no agreements on individual points have been reached yet.
Regarding the Digital Services Act (DSA), the rapporteur MEP Christel Schaldemose (S&D, DK) presented the most disputed topics of the proposal, namely, targeted advertising, SMEs, algorithms, and product safety.
Similarly, the discussions between shadow rapporteurs also seem to be difficult, according to the Greens shadow rapporteur, MEP Alexandra Geese (DE), as she said that so far, although they are finding some common grounds, there have mainly been discussions only on technical issues. Also, for the DSA, the meeting of the rapporteur and the shadows will take place next week.
Contact: Manca Pocivavsek
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