Newsflash - 10 September 2021

Publication of the European Commission 2021 Strategic Foresight Report

On Wednesday 9 September 2021, Maroš Šefčovič, European Commission Vice-President for Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight, presented the second annual Strategic Foresight Report, ‘The EU’s capacity and freedom to act’. You can find here SGI Europe’s comments.

This Report presents a forward-looking and multidisciplinary perspective on the EU's open strategic autonomy in an increasingly multipolar and contested global order. The Commission has identified four main global trends, affecting the EU's capacity and freedom to act: climate change and other environmental challenges; digital hyperconnectivity and technological transformation; pressure on democracy and values; and shifts in the global order and demography. It has also set out 10 key areas of action where the EU can seize opportunities for its global leadership and open strategic autonomy.

Since last year, the annual Strategic Foresight Reports play a central role in shaping the priorities of the State of the Union speech, the upcoming Commission Work Programme as well as the multi-annual programming for the EU.

Contact: Antonio Astolfi

SGI Europe feedback on the Platform on Sustainable Finance’s draft report on social taxonomy

On Friday 3 September, SGI Europe submitted its response to the call for feedback on the Platform on Sustainable Finance’s draft report on social taxonomy that aims to help investors identify socially sustainable opportunities by defining criteria for social investments.

As a cross-industry European social partner, SGI Europe believes that any future requirements related to the social taxonomy should consider the national differences and industrial relations’ systems, including the exclusive attributions of the social partners, as well as respecting the subsidiarity principle and leaving enough flexibility to the Member States and social partners when it comes to designing and implementing national social policy.

SGI Europe indicated that there is an imbalance in assessing the impact for the public sector and the private sector, and that it is essential that this policy framework continues to follow the key objective of improving the data’ availability regarding the social sustainability performance, including for social infrastructure and services providers, for becoming more attractive for investments.

SGI Europe underlined that the possible introduction of uniform criteria at European level to assess the social impact of certain activities and certain investments represents a shared goal, but it must be accompanied, preliminarily, by a serious and profound reflection, aimed at unravelling all the legitimate doubts and uncertainties that have prevented the creation of a global impact social assessment model, considering the substantial differences that exist between sectors and the different regions of Europe.

Contact: Stefan Enica

EESC public hearing on "Collective bargaining practices in Member States with a low labour union participation rate"

On 6 September 2021, SGI Europe addressed the public hearing "Collective bargaining practices in Member States with a low labour union participation rate", organised by the European Economic and Social Committee's Labour Market Observatory (LMO).

Focused on the identification of labour market trends and challenges, the event examined data and trends on collective agreements in countries with a low labour union participation rate and stimulated a discussion amongst social partners, civil society organisations and academics.  A panel dedicated to Setting the scene took place in the morning, followed by two panels in the afternoon, one dedicated to the European social partners' perspective and the other one to Examples from Member States.

In this context, SGI Europe insisted in its intervention on the fact that there is no blueprint for a perfect social dialogue system and that in each Member State exists a different and intricate relationship between trade uniond or employer, collective agreements coverage, role of the Government with regards to social dialogue, or the common use or not of extension clauses. SGI Europe also addressed the need in several Member States for a constant and dedicated institutional support for social partner organisation in terms of capacity building, and it welcomed the newly earmarked ESF+ amount dedicated for this purpose.

Finally, SGI Europe reiterated its commitment to address the key challenges of the future for social partners (particularly at the sectoral level) related to the environmental transition and the digitalisation of the economy.

Contact: Guillaume Afellat

SGI Europe feedback to the Extended Taxonomy consultation, calling on the Commission to avoid a Blacklist Taxonomy hindering important SGI activities to be financed

On 6 September, SGI Europe submitted its response to the first preliminary public consultation on the Extended EU Taxonomy proposal. The aim of the Extended Taxonomy is to ensure the further enhancement of the EU Taxonomy and examine the premises, issues and options for and against extending the EU Taxonomy ‘beyond green’ to include significantly harmful (SH) activities and no significant impact (NSI) activities (both in relation to environmental sustainability) within the overall EU sustainable finance framework. This report represents a work in progress and was published to gather feedback which will further inform the Platform as it continues to work on these topics, aiming to publish a Final Report later in the year. The findings in the Platform’s Final Report will help inform the Commission’s decisions as they respond to the requirement of Article 26.2(a) of the Taxonomy Regulation, EU Regulation 2020/852. 

SGI Europe explained that the current EU Taxonomy is still limited to the SC and DNSH criteria and was therefore not complete. In this respect, a list of intermediate activities that, although they are not green per se, can be accompanied towards a partial, but still always useful, transition to better environmental performance, that will be a necessary step to complete the EU Taxonomy. SGI Europe however recognises the potential risk of making this extended Taxonomy into a “blacklist” for activities not to invest in. We explained that the Commission should not forget the very spirit of the Taxonomy: to be a guiding tool for investment choices and not a list of prohibited activities. 

This especially applies to certain activities, where the current Taxonomy with its green-non-green binary approach is not adequately considering the characteristics of certain activities and does not value efforts to improve the sustainability of activities not considered as green. This prevents the EU taxonomy from becoming a complete and fair tool for activities to invest in. For example, if Waste to Energy (WtE) remains out of the transition activities, we therefore ask to categorise WtE as an Intermediate Performance (IP) activity, which is a technology capable of contributing to the closure of the waste cycle with energy recovery.

You can read the full response to the Extended Taxonomy public consultation here and the European Commission’s Draft report on the Extended Taxonomy here. 

Contact: Henriette Gleau

Study of the European Commission’s DG COMP on market trends in healthcare and social housing and state aid implications

Last week, the Commission published a Study on Market Trends in healthcare and social housing and State aid implications that was conducted in the context of an on-going Evaluation of the 2012 Service of General Economic Interest (SGEI) Package regarding healthcare and social housing.

This study provides an overview of the markets’ developments in the concerned sectors since 2012, particularly the development of market trends, analysis of the evolvement of competition on the market and an analysis of the extent to which Member States are aware of possible State aid implications of policy and market trends.

Although the study shows that the 2012 SGEI Package has, overall, succeeded in its key objectives, some of the rules did not satisfactorily meet the expectations. Amongst the important findings of the study are:

• The de minimis ceiling of EUR 500.000, has proven to be one of the best improvements of the 2012 Package. However, the stakeholders reported that the ceiling is easily reached, and considering the overall increasing State aid support for the sectors, there could be some room for improvements. SGI Europe calls for increasing the thresholds for reasons of proportionality. You can read the SGI Europe Position here.
• Furthermore, the Study found that the determination of an economic activity (The SGEI Communication) is unclear and the key barrier to the implementation of the 2012 SGEI Package.
• According to the Study, the definition of social housing (The SGEI Decision) is seen as opaque, since there is no one definition of social housing across the EU Member States. Moreover, many stakeholders consider the definition as ‘outdated’ since the needs of the population at national level for ‘affordable housing’ is increasing. SGI Europe advocates for rethinking the definition of ‘social housing’ and removing the reference ‘to disadvantaged citizens or socially less advantaged groups” from the definition.

Contact: Manca Pocivavsek