2 December 2022
On Wednesday 30 November 2022, from 10:00 to 12:00, SGI Europe and the European Movement International held a joint event “More Than Words: What’s Next for the Conference on the Future of Europe?”. This event was hosted by MEP Patrizia Toia (S&D, IT) at the European Parliament.
This event was the occasion to bring together representatives from the European Commission, the European Parliament, social partners, civil society and citizens. Each of them had the opportunity to share its own experience of the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) and discuss their expectations regarding the EU institutions.
The first panel, titled “What is the Europe of Tomorrow that We Want?”, was chaired by Valeria Ronzitti, SGI Europe’s General Secretary. It gathered MEP Patrizia Toia (S&D, IT), MEP Guy Verhofstadt (Renew, BE), Oliver Röpke, President of the EESC Workers’ Group, Guillaume McLaughlin, Co-head of the CoFoE’s Common Secretariat for the European Parliament, and Nikolas Moravek, member of the CoFoE plenary.
The second panel, titled “The Future of Citizens’ Panels”, was chaired by Petros Fassoulas, General Secretary of the European Movement International. It gathered Colin Scicluna, Head of Cabinet of Dubravka Suica, European Commission Vice-President, MEP Daniel Freund (Greens/EFA, DE), Camille Dobler, Head of Research at Missions Publiques, and Valentina Balzani, member of the CoFoE plenary.
You can find more information on SGI Europe’s website and on our Twitter account.
Contact: Benoît Cassorla
On Monday 5 December 2022 (14:00-17:00), in the context of the project ‘Green Skills in VET’ co-funded by the European Commission, SGI Europe and the European Federation of Education Employers (EFEE) will hold the final dissemination conference, which will take place in Brussels (online participation possible).
The keynote speech of the conference will be addressed by Nicolas Schmit, European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Affairs. Panel discussions will include as speakers Stefan Olsson, Deputy Director-General on Jobs, Skills and Social policies in the European Commission’s DG Employment, and MEP Victor Negrescu (S&D, RO).
During the conference, SGI Europe and EFEE will present the final report of the project, including key research findings focusing on the current and future green skills and the training needs of SGI employers, and the role of education providers in the green transition.
You can find here the agenda of the conference. You can still register via the following link should you wish to join the conference.
Also, in the morning of Thursday 8 December 2022 (9:30-12:30), the final dissemination conference of the project ‘Involving SGIs in the European Semester’ will be organized by SGI Europe in Brussels.
Valdis Dombrovskis, Executive Vice President of the European Commission for An Economy that Works for People will provide the keynote address during this conference. With this occasion, SGI Europe and its members will present the outcomes of the project, including the new network of National Semester Contact Points, and the methodology that will guide and improve their contribution to the milestones of the Semester process.
Contact: Stefan Enica
On 30 November, the European Commission published two legislative proposals and an EU policy framework under the second Circular Economy Action Plan. The proposals primarily aim at strategically reducing waste packaging by introducing a 15% target to reduce waste by 2040 and make all packaging fully recyclable by 2030.
The overall objective is to give more power and information to consumers to stimulate a market for reusable packaging options, eliminate unnecessary packaging and provide clear labels to support recycling. The proposals – namely the EU Packaging and Waste Packaging Regulation and the EU policy framework on biobased, biodegradable and compostable plastics – should create more fluent and circular waste streams in Europe.
SGI Europe welcomes the Commission’s proposals, in particular the ambitions to stop waste packaging from the beginning, and keeping the priority order of the waste hierarchy in line with the Waste Framework Directive.
Additionally, the European Commission also presented its proposal for a regulation on a EU Carbon Removal Certification, which intends to boost innovative carbon removal technologies and sustainable carbon farming solutions.
Following the publication of those proposals, SGI Europe’s will hold an Extraordinary online meeting of the Environment Task Force on 7 December (10:00-13:00) to discuss in further details the proposals.
Contact: Henriette Gleau
On 30 November, SGI Europe participated to a dedicated hearing of the EU social partners on the upcoming proposal for a Council Recommendation on developing social economy framework conditions. The hearing took place in the context of the Social Economy Action Plan launched in December 2021.
On this occasion, the European Commission emphasized that while the visibility and recognition of the social economy and of social enterprises at national and regional levels has improved over the last decade, measures taken by Member States have not always resulted in effective developments. Consequently, the European Commission intends to publish in early 2023 a proposal for a new Council Recommendation to encourage the development by Member States of framework conditions fit for scaling-up and further developing social economy organizations.
Among other issues, the future Recommendation could encourage Member States to:
SGI Europe insisted during the hearing on the necessity to ensure a level playing field between the social economy and the traditional for-profit sectors with regard to access to funding opportunities. Innovative investment instruments – such as quasi-equity and social impact bonds – should be developed to respond to the specific characteristics of social economy enterprises. It is also crucial to further develop, at national level, the measurement of social impacts in order to make clearly understood by financial institutions the output of social economy organizations.
On 1 December 2022, the European Commission published its Staff Working Document (SWD) on the outcomes of the evaluation of State aid rules for health and social services of general (economic) interest and of the SGEI de minimis Regulation.
The evaluation began in 2019 and in September 2021, the Study on Market Trends in healthcare and social housing and State aid implications, which feeds into the evaluation, was published.
In the SWD, the European Commission assesses whether the 2012 SGEI package is still appropriate for delivering health and social services. This means that the evaluation covers all 4 legal texts in the SGEI Package: the SGEI Communication (explaining the definitions), the SGEI Decision (in particular relevant to health and social services, under certain conditions deemed automatically compatible with the internal market), the SGEI Framework (relevant to the social and health services only to a lesser extent) and the SGEI de minimis Regulation (for smaller amounts of aid).
Some of the reasons to evaluate in particular the health and social sectors is the recent developments in the jurisprudence of the Union Courts and sectoral developments in the internal and global markets.
The evaluation showed that the rules are still fit for purpose. However, a further clarification of certain concepts would be needed, in particular regarding the (non) economic nature of activity, reasonable profit (the complexity of calculating it and higher costs related to the outsourcing to the consultancies), market failure, etc. Also, further guidance is still needed. Lastly, there is need for an alignment of the SGEI de minimis Regulation with the general de minimis Regulation (which is currently under the revision, with a deadline for public consultation on 10 January 2023).
Contact: Manca Pocivavsek
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