25 November 2022
On Wednesday 30 November 2022, from 10:00 to 12:00, SGI Europe, together with the European Movement International, will hold a joint event “More Than Words: What’s Next for the Conference on the Future of Europe?”. This event, hosted by MEP Patrizia Toia (S&D, IT), will take place in the European Parliament.
The Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) has provided citizens with a venue to shape a dialogue with EU and national institutions, civil society, social partners, and local and regional governments to craft concrete proposals for a better Europe. The proposals laid out in the final report of the CoFoE offer a unique opportunity to build a common trajectory for the future of the European Union.
This event will bring together representatives from organised civil society, the EU institutions, social partners and the CoFoE’s citizens’ ambassadors with the ambition of discussing how to deliver on the CoFoE by coming up with tangible proposals. It will provide an open discussion on how a solid democratic environment can be shaped and citizen participation strengthened in Europe.
You can find more information on SGI Europe’s website, and register on the following page.
Contact: Benoît Cassorla
On 23 November, SGI Europe and the EU cross-industry social partners met Margrethe Vestager (European Commission Executive Vice-President for a Europe fit for the Digital Age, Margaritis Schinas (European Commission Vice-President for the EU Way of Life) and Nicolas Schmit (European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights) to discuss the social partners’ contribution to the EU Year of Skills 2023, given their unique role in skills development.
The EU Year of Skills will drive forward the implementation of existing actions, including the EU Skills Agenda and the Pact for Skills. Planned activities include various events in cooperation with Member States, social partners, education and training providers, and other stakeholders, focusing on awareness-raising campaigns to support skills forecasting and mutual learning in upskilling and reskilling.
SGI Europe underlined at this occasion that the success of the EU Green Deal is at risk due to the shortage of skilled professionals in key SGI sectors such as energy and water. Therefore, SGI Europe will further promote the importance of green skills with local utilities as strategic priority for achieving the climate objectives, including through the results of the project ‘’Green Skills in VET’’ which offers intelligence on the most-in-demand occupations for SGI sectors, and best practices of collaboration with VET providers.
SGI Europe stressed the importance of strengthening the cross-sectoral collaboration between employers and education stakeholders and equipping the latter with the necessary infrastructure and updated curricula. The EU Year of Skills should also promote the strategic role of VET in meeting the objectives of the EU Green Deal, where VET becomes a tool to manage and govern change taking place in the labour market.
Contact: Stefan Enica
On 24 November, the Council of the EU held another extraordinary meeting in its Energy configuration to discuss the current energy crisis. Earlier this week, on Tuesday, the European Commission put forward a proposal for a price gas gap to limit high gas prices in Europe. The proposed temporary ‘market correction mechanism’ would apply to the EU’s main gas trading hub TTF, aiming to limit excessive prices when they are unrelated to global price spikes. The proposal was heavily criticized by the Member States and the media.
The cap was planned to be in place for a year and come into force if two conditions are met. Either months-ahead prices on the TTF exceed €275 for two weeks or the difference between the TTF price and the global liquified natural gas (LNG) price is €58 or more.
On Thursday, Member States could not agree to this Commission proposal and therefore removed the provisions from this regulation in order to address the issue separately at a later date. The Council will now analyse the proposal for a market correction mechanism and seek a political agreement as soon as possible.
Instead, the Council agreed the following decisions to counteract the high energy prices:
The Regulation is to be formally adopted by the Council, together with an agreement on the proposal for a market correction mechanism at the next extraordinary Energy Council in early December.
Contact: Henriette Gleau
On 22 November, the European Commission launched the 2023 European Semester cycle of economic policy coordination with the publication of the European Semester Autumn Package 2023. The package is composed of the Annual sustainable growth survey, the Proposal for a Joint Employment Report, the Alert Mechanism report, the Euro area recommendation, as well as the Communication and Opinions on the Draft Budgetary Plans.
The four priorities set forward throughout the Semester package are the promotion of environmental sustainability, productivity, fairness and macroeconomic stability, with a view to fostering competitive sustainability.
The package draws upon the Autumn 2022 Economic Forecast that the EU economy has now entered a very challenging phase, with amongst others the fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, such as historically high energy prices, high inflation, supply shortages, increased debt levels and rising borrowing costs.
The European Commission expects economic policy coordination through the European Semester to help address these challenges through clear and well-coordinated policy guidance. This Annual Sustainable Growth Survey puts forward an ambitious agenda to further strengthen coordinated EU policy responses to mitigate the negative impacts of energy shocks in the short term.
It relies on the rollout of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, with a budget of €723.8 billion in grants and loans to support the reform agenda until 2026, and on the REPowerEU plan, which will increase the resilience of EU energy systems and prevent energy poverty through targeted investments and reforms.
The Commission recommended that euro area Member States continue coordinating fiscal policies to support the timely return of inflation to the 2% medium-term target and sustain a high level of public investment to foster social and economic resilience and support the green and digital transitions.
It also urged Member States to further improve active labour market policies and address skills shortages in the latest edition of the Joint Employment report. SGI Europe and members of the Macroeconomics Task Force will follow and prepare inputs to the next steps of the Semester process.
Contact: Guillaume Afellat
On Tuesday 22 November 2022, the final meeting of SGI Europe’s Public Services Board for 2022 took place. The main topics of the meeting addressed during the meeting included state aid, the upcoming initiative of the European Commission “VAT in the digital age” and the Single Market Emergency Instrument.
As mitigating the impacts of the energy crisis remains a top priority for the EU, members of the Board exchanged on the Temporary Crisis Framework, a tool that gives a bit more leniency and flexibility to Member States regarding state aid rules. After the second amendment and prolongation, the TCF is now seen as a useful tool, with Member States now in position to design schemes that will benefit companies facing adverse consequences from high energy prices. A second important issue on state aid is the revision of the de minimis Regulation, which allows for small amounts of aid to be considered as not an aid at all. Members reflected on the appropriateness of the proposed threshold and the introduction of a public mandatory register.
The second topic touched upon was the initiative of the European Commission “VAT in the Digital age” (scheduled for publication on 7 December), where a representative of the European Commission presented the recent work of the Commission on modernising VAT system by changing e-invoicing, reporting obligations and taxation of the platform economy.
This item was followed by the presentation of the Single Market Emergency Instrument. This new tool intends to respond to the supply crisis and was designed as a response to the pandemic. However, it adopts a crisis-neutral approach, and should therefore be ready to be in any kind of crisis that affects and threatens the functioning of the internal market.
The next meeting of the Public Services Board will take place in February 2023.
Contact: Manca Pocivavsek
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