17 February 2023
On Wednesday 15 February, SGI Europe – Spain, the Spanish section of SGI Europe, hosted a joint meeting of the Public Services and Sustainability Boards. The meeting took place in Madrid, in the premises of La Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre (FMNT) and featured external speakers IMCO chair Anna Cavazzini (MEP, Greens/EFA), Albane Demblans, Deputy Head of Unit ‘Sustainable Finance’ at the European Commission, and Alejandro Abellán García de Diego, Director General at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation.
The meeting was opened by María Isabel Valldecabres Ortiz, FMNT President, Juan Tejedor Carnero, President of SGI Europe - Spain and Pascal Bolo, President of SGI Europe. Chaired by Alain Taccoen (Sustainability Board) and Nadine Fischer (Public Services Board), the meeting addressed the 30 years of the Single Market, as well as the upcoming challenges, the future of the EU Taxonomy and the forthcoming priorities of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU (with an increased focus on strategic autonomy, health, energy, digital and foresight).
The next meeting of the Public Services Board will be on 24 May 2023, while the Sustainability Board will be gathered on 21 September 2023.
Contact: Manca Pocivavsek and Henriette Gleau
On Thursday 16 February, Pascal Bolo, SGI Europe President, and Valeria Ronzitti, General Secretary, met with Joaquín Pérez Rey, Spanish Secretary of State for Employment and the Social Economy. The meeting was the occasion for SGI Europe to present its priorities for 2023, well ahead of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU (from July 2023-December 2023).
During the discussion, a specific focus was put on the social priorities, including the involvement of social partners in the programme of the Spanish presidency, how to promote further social dialogue across Europe and the development of the EU framework for the Social economy.
Contact: Benoît Cassorla
On 13 February, SGI Europe submitted its response and recommendations to the European Commission’s public consultation on the revision of the Electricity Market Design, together with a dedicated position paper on the topic.
In this position paper, finalised during the Energy Task Force meeting in Stockholm on 8 February, SGI Europe highlights that the new revised market design must offer stable prices of low-cost and low-carbon sources to consumers and anchor this principle at the root of the revision. SGI Europe also underlines that every measurement taken when revising the Electricity Market Design must address the security of supply in the energy sector. It will be essential to ensure that consumers and the economy are not further damaged through new measurements and that stability and security are guaranteed across Europe.
To reach the goals of the EU Green Deal and the Paris Agreement’s targets, the EU needs major changes in the whole energy value chain: the goal is first to consume less energy before shifting to low-carbon energy. In that context, electricity will have a crucial role alongside low-carbon technologies, renewable and decarbonised gases, district heating systems (wherever economically feasible) and a new hydrogen market.
Finally, SGI Europe underlines the need to adapt the EU market design and encourage long-term contracts. The current market design works well for short-term optimisation and must remain unchanged. However, it fails to ensure the stability and price signals needed to incentivise upstream and downstream investments. To cope with these challenges, the market design needs to be adapted to the context of increasingly volatile markets and encourage longer-term contracts whilst respecting regional differences across the European Union.
Contact: Henriette Gleau
On Friday 17 February, the Social Protection Committee (SPC) and the European Commission held a dedicated consultation with the EU Social Partners, kicking off the work on the 2024 edition of the Pension Adequacy Report (PAR).
The Pension Adequacy Report is prepared by the European Commission in cooperation with the Social Protection Committee and the SPC Working Group on Pension Adequacy and aims to assess the adequacy of pensions and the financial sustainability of the EU pension systems. The report is published every three years and provides an overview of the current and future adequacy of old-age incomes in EU Member States in three dimensions: poverty prevention, income maintenance, and retirement duration.
During the consultation, SGI Europe highlighted the importance of addressing the issue of demographic ageing whilst ensuring that older citizens enjoy a healthy and adequate pension. After contributing to previous reports, SGI Europe remains fully committed to helping and advising the SPC working groups on the issue of pension and social security sustainability, supporting a vision that leaves no one behind.
Contact: Guillaume Afellat
On Thursday 16 February, the European Parliament adopted its report answering to the Commission's ‘Green Deal Industrial Plan for the Net-Zero Age’ presented on 1 February. In their joint resolution (by the S&D, Renew and Greens groups and adopted with 310 votes in favour, 155 against and 100 abstentions), MEPs support the overall objective of securing EU leadership in clean energy technologies and improving Europe's existing industrial base high-quality jobs and economic growth.
MEPs call on the Commission to work on plans to redeploy, relocate and re-shore industries in Europe. They stress the importance of enhancing the EU's manufacturing strength in strategic technologies like solar and wind energy, heat pumps, and batteries. They demand the scaling-up and improved commercialisation of strategic technologies to bridge the gap between innovation and market deployment. Fast and predictable permitting procedures to set up new projects to deploy renewable energy sources as quickly as possible are also needed, according to MEPs.
Finally, they highlight that a future EU Sovereignty fund should avoid the fragmentation caused by uncoordinated national state aid schemes and ensure an effective response to the crisis. The fund would have to strengthen EU strategic autonomy and the green and digital transitions, be integrated into the EU long-term budget and mobilise private investments. EU state aid rules should also be simplified and allow for flexibility but should be targeted, temporary, proportionate and consistent with EU policy objectives.
On 1 February, following the Green Deal Industrial Plan presentation, SGI Europe welcomed the proposal to accompany the EU Green Deal with an enabling industrial strategy. SGI Europe believes that the Green Deal must remain the growth strategy for a genuine green transition across the EU, and investment and access to finance, developing the right skills and simplifying the regulatory environment should directly support SGIs in fully contributing to the green transition.
Contact: Maxime Staelens
On 13 February 2023, the European Commission presented its Winter 2023 Economic Forecast report. Almost one year after the beginning of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine, the report confirms that the EU economy entered 2023 on a better footing than anticipated.
The Winter Forecast lifts the growth outlook for this year to 0.8% in the EU and 0.9% in the euro area. The growth rate for 2024 remains unchanged, at 1.6% and 1.5% for the EU and the euro area, respectively. Both the EU and the euro areas are set to avoid the recession that was anticipated narrowly. The forecast also slightly lowers the projections for inflation for 2023 and 2024. The inflation forecast has been revised slightly downwards compared to autumn, mainly reflecting developments in the energy market. Headline inflation is forecast to fall from 9.2% in 2022 to 6.4% in 2023 and 2.8% in 2024 in the EU.
This better outlook doesn’t mean EU economic issues are solved. During the press conference to present the report, Paolo Gentiloni, Commissioner for Economy, highlighted that “better than expected doesn't mean good and the outlook is, of course, policy-dependent”. Many challenges remain ahead, with slow growth expected and inflation set to slowly and progressively decrease.
Contact: Benoît Cassorla
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