15 January 2021
On 15 January, Pascal Bolo, President of SGI Europe, and Valeria Ronzitti, General Secretary of SGI Europe, met with Charles Michel, President of the European Council. Besides being the first meeting with the President of one of the EU institutions for SGI Europe, the meeting was also the first one for Pascal Bolo as President of SGI Europe.
Following up on our official renaming on 8 December, the meeting was a perfect opportunity to promote our key messages, reiterate our support for a Green, Fair and Digital recovery, as well as recall the contributions of SGI providers to the management of the pandemic. The meeting was also the occasion to have a first discussion on the contribution that SGI Europe can make to the success of the Social Summit to be organised in Porto in May 2021 by the Portuguese Presidency of the EU.
After nine months of intensive negotiations since the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union on 31 January 2020, the European Commission and the United Kingdom agreed on 24 December 2020 on the terms of their future cooperation. Avoiding a No-Deal scenario, SGI Europe welcomes the deal, which balances the British people’s decision to leave the European Union whilst promoting the longstanding relationships between EU and UK.
Concluding the UK's withdrawal from the EU and setting the new EU-UK partnership, this deal is seen as a fair and balanced one, protecting the European interests, ensuring fair competition, and providing predictability for both parties.
The Trade and Cooperation Agreement consists of three main pillars:
A Free Trade Agreement: a new economic and social partnership with the United Kingdom
The agreement covers a broad range of areas, such as trade in goods and services, investment, competition, state aid, tax transparency, air and road transport, energy and sustainability, fisheries, data protection, and social security coordination.
Both parties have committed to ensuring a robust level playing field by maintaining high levels of protection in areas such as environmental protection, the fight against climate change and carbon pricing, social and labour rights, tax transparency and State aid, with effective, domestic enforcement, a binding dispute settlement mechanism and the possibility for both parties to take remedial measures.
The agreement also enables the UK's continued participation in a number of flagship EU programmes for the period 2021-2027 (subject to a financial contribution by the UK to the EU budget), such as Horizon Europe.
A new partnership for our citizens' security
The Trade and Cooperation Agreement establishes a new framework for law enforcement and judicial cooperation in criminal and civil law matters, recognizing the need for strong cooperation between national police and judicial authorities.
A horizontal agreement on Governance: A framework that stands the test of time
To give maximum legal certainty to businesses, consumers and citizens, a dedicated chapter on governance provides clarity on how the agreement will be operated and controlled. It also establishes a Joint Partnership Council, that will make sure the Agreement is properly applied and interpreted, and in which all arising issues will be discussed. Both parties can also engage in cross-sector retaliation in case of violations of the agreement. This cross-sector retaliation applies to all areas of the economic partnership.
The Agreement has been approved by the European Council, the UK government, and the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and its application is currently provisional, pending the final approval by the European Parliament, which started its scrutiny process.
On 18 December, SGI Europe submitted its response to the public consultation on the EU Taxonomy Delegated Acts on Mitigation and Adaptation, which you can find here. The Commission received on that day 46.000 contributions.
As a permanent observer of the Sustainable Finance Platform, SGI Europe strongly underlined in several examples its fear that service providers and investors may lose the needed interest if the information burden is too onerous, unclear and not in line with existing EU legislations and will opt for traditional funding requiring less disclosure. We therefore demanded in our position paper that the EU Taxonomy fully takes into account the respected national and EU legislations and applies them accordingly, while aiming at setting a framework guided by common principles and similar levels of ambition across various sectors, as well as for a technology neutral approach respecting the role of public undertakings.
Contact: Henriette Gleau
The European Commission accepted two new projects proposed by SGI Europe within the ‘’Support for social dialogue’’ call for proposals. The new projects will address the involvement of the services of general interest in the European Semester and the green skills needs for the vocational education and training.
The first project, ‘’Involving SGIs in the European Semester’’, represents a chance to increase the capacity and the quality of the input for the European Semester from the public services’ employers and services of general interest providers. The project partners are the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR), the Union of Social and Solidarity Economy Employers (UDES), and the Union of Social Profit Companies (UNISOC).
In the second project, ‘’Green Skills in VET’’, SGI Europe and the European Federation of Education Employers (EFEE) aim to identify future skills and training needs of employers of three key public services which will be affected by the development of the green economy, namely water, transport, and energy.
The activities of the two new projects will begin in February 2021 and will last for 2 years, targeting several Member States where SGI Europe will work with project partners and affiliated organisation from our membership network.
Contact: Ștefan Enică
On 15 January, the European Economic and Social Committee held a remote hearing to gather reflexions, recommendations and best practices from Institutions, Researchers, Social Partners and Civil Society Organisations on teleworking and gender equality. Guillaume Afellat, Policy Advisor at SGI Europe, recalled on this occasion that the pandemic has completely changed the dynamic for telework and that it does not equal perfect work-life balance in the present context. It is important for social partners to take this into account in their social dialogue and collective bargaining, in full respect of their autonomy and to consider the gender perspective of telework. It is also crucial to improve the access to quality, affordable and accessible childcare and elderly care services to provide relief for women who are still the ones bearing most of the burden of unpaid work at home.
This hearing followed up on a request from the Portuguese Presidency of the Council to the EESC to prepare an exploratory opinion on teleworking and gender equality, in order to avoid increasing the unequal distribution of unpaid care and domestic work between women and men and for it to be an engine for promoting gender equality.
The COVID-19 pandemic has provided unprecedented evidence that the relationship between teleworking and gender equality is complex. Several surveys conducted during the first months of the pandemic seem to show that lockdown and teleworking have brought out, and sometimes amplified, the existing gender gap in family relationships and working conditions. Already before the COVID-19 crisis, women were hourly paid 14.1% less than men on average. The pandemic has further revealed women’s precarious economic security, not least because they are overrepresented in many of the industries hardest hit by the crisis, such as tourism, food service, wholesale and retail trade, and entertainment. Reflections on the potential of teleworking must consider the economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on women, as well as its long-term health and personal-related consequences.
Contact: Guillaume Afellat
Friday 1 January 2021 marked the beginning of the European Year of Rail. The initiative will highlight the benefits of rail as a sustainable, smart and safe means of transport. A variety of activities will put rail in the spotlight throughout 2021 across the continent, to encourage the use of rail by both citizens and businesses and to contribute to the EU Green Deal goal of becoming climate-neutral by 2050.
SGI Europe has in general welcomed the adoption of the Year of Rail 2021 as an important tool to encourage the mobility sector for the public throughout Europe and invest more in the infrastructures needed to reach our climate goals. Despite the exclusion of local and urban public transport such as bus, trams and metros in the file that is just as important as rail for a successful modal shift, we have welcomed the inclusion of our recommendations to encourage the public to make more efficient use of connecting mobility modes.
Whilst the Year of Rail 2021 file intends to make a greater effort in bringing back the trust of passengers to use rail for transportation during the COVID-19 crisis, SGI Europe together with its EU partners CER, UITP and Eurocities have signed a letter to call on the European Commission to make this same effort for all modes of the public transportation and call for strategic action that supports this public good for a resilient and green future for cities.
Contact: Henriette Gleau
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