31 March 2023
On Monday 27 March, SGI Europe President Pascal Bolo and General Secretary Valeria Ronzitti met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
During this meeting, SGI Europe addressed the recent proposals of the European Commission to boost the competitiveness of the EU, including the Green Deal Industrial Plan and the Net-Zero Industry Act. Commenting on the proposals, President Bolo and General Secretary Ronzitti recalled that services of general interest are instrumental in the EU social market economy and key to EU competitiveness. Therefore, they must be at the heart of the EU market economy and its social model. SGI Europe calls for the Green Deal Industrial Plan, the Net-Zero Industry Act, the Critical Raw Materials Act and the upcoming proposal for a Competitiveness Check to reflect this reality.
Discussing the longer-term prospects, SGI Europe highlighted that the upcoming proposal for an EU Sovereignty Fund must be an opportunity to further reinforce EU cooperation on key sectors, identify and optimise the EU added value, and improve the contribution of SGIs to a thriving industrial policy. The Sovereignty Fund could also pave the way to, in the very long run, a discussion on EU Public Goods, which could become a perennial instrument to give the EU the means of its ambitions.
Contact: Benoît Cassorla
On Thursday 30 March, the plenary of the European Parliament endorsed the agreement with the Council on new rules on binding pay transparency to address the gender pay gap. Under the legislation adopted by the European Parliament by 427 votes to 79 against and 76 abstentions on Thursday 30 March, pay structures to compare pay levels will now have to be based on gender-neutral criteria and include gender-neutral job evaluation and classification systems. Vacancy notices and job titles will also have to be gender neutral, and recruitment processes led in a non-discriminatory manner.
If pay reporting shows a gender pay gap of at least 5%, employers must conduct a joint pay assessment in cooperation with their workers’ representatives. Member states must put effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties, such as fines, for employers that infringe the rules. A worker who has suffered harm due to an infringement will have the right to claim compensation, which has been extended for the first time to non-binary persons. Moreover, another new feature is the definition and inclusion of intersectional discrimination in European legislation as aggravating circumstances when determining penalties.
The next step of the legislative process is formally approving the agreement by the Council before the text is signed into law and published in the EU Official Journal. Then, the new rules will come into force twenty days after publication.
Contact: Guillaume Afellat
On 28 March, during the Energy Council meeting, EU Ministers agreed on the institution’s general approach to the internal market rules for renewable and natural gases and hydrogen. Comprising a regulation and a directive, this package aims to revise the transitional market design for the gas sector towards renewable and low-carbon gases, with a strong support scheme for biomethane and hydrogen to reach the set goals of EU climate neutrality in 2050. It proposes to, amongst others:
The Council also proposes to remove many of the provisions regarding the security of supply, as they are covered under various emergency legislations adopted in 2022, leaving space for further alignment in the future. It also calls for an allowance threshold for blending hydrogen into natural gas systems of up to 2% by volume (instead of 5%) and strengthened and improved provisions enabling geographically confined hydrogen networks. It also removed the reference ‘pink hydrogen’ (referring to low-carbon hydrogen and low-carbon fuels of non-biological origin, including nuclear energy), which was under discussion in the context of the review of the Renewable Energy Directive.
With this position, the Council stands ready to start the negotiation with the European Parliament and possibly include a similar agreement to the pink hydrogen, in line with the agreed REDIII. The topic will be further analysed in the next meeting of the SGI Europe Energy Task Force on 3 May.
Contact: Henriette Gleau
On 28 March 2023, the Council and the European Parliament found an agreement on the Alternative fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) to increase the amount of electric and hydrogen charging points in the EU. The provisional political agreement will now be subject to formal adoption by both co-legislators.
According to the agreed text, the AFIR will aim at:
The AFIR agreement will be further analysed in the next meeting of SGI Europe’s Transport Task Force on 16 May 2023.
On 30 March 2023, the trilogue on the review of the Renewables Energy Directive (REDIII), a key part of the Commission’s Fit for 55 package, was concluded. This directive aims to increase ambitions around the share of renewables in the bloc’s overall energy mix. The Main points agreed upon by the co-legislators are:
The agreed text also foresees that countries could reduce the 2030 targets for renewable fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBOs) used in the industry by 23% without jeopardising their national climate contributions, and the share of hydrogen made with fossil fuels in a country does not exceed more than 20% of hydrogen consumption.
Contact: Henriette Gleau
On Monday 27 March, the European Commission published a study on Community Guidelines on State aid for Railway Undertakings. The study provides market information for revising the Guidelines on State aid for railway undertakings adopted in 2008. The revision of the Guidelines intends to support the modal shift towards less polluting transport modes such as rail, which still needs to catch up in the total share of freight transport.
The study builds upon the publicly available data and inputs from a dedicated stakeholder consultation. The key issues examined are the status of rail infrastructure, accessibility and costs of rolling stock, profitability and demand elasticity of rail freight services and effectiveness of State support measures.
The study found that the liberalisation process promoted many new entrants to the market, but constraints in funding prevented the maintenance and expansion of an appropriate network infrastructure. According to the study, it is difficult to clearly say whether the lack of service facilities is supply- or demand-driven. One of the reasons could be insufficient funding due to low returns associated with the investment.
In many Member states, rail freight sector is loss-making. It therefore needs to be incentivised to adequately support its advantage over road freight transport, including safety and low pollution. Private investments have increased in the sector, but state aid is still needed to ensure the renewal of the rolling stock fleets.
In March 2022, SGI Europe answered the Public consultation on the planned revision of the Guidelines, calling for higher intensities for State aid for rail infrastructure, State aid for reducing external costs and State aid for interoperability and provided other insights needed for incentivising railway undertakings to invest in the modernisation of their rolling stock to keep rail transport competitive with different modes of transportation.
Contact: Manca Pocivavsek
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