6 April 2023
This week, member organisations of the EU social partners were invited to contribute to preparing the annual joint national reports on the implementation of the agreement on digitalisation. Social partners are expected to finalise and present their national reports by 26 May at the latest to further exchange on the issue during the Social Dialogue Committee scheduled in June 2023.
National social partners are currently preparing joint descriptions of the different initiatives undertaken regarding translation, dissemination and implementation of the agreement in their country. When it is impossible for national members to find consensus on the report's content, their diverging points of view will also be included.
This process aligns with the Social Dialogue Committee agreement related to the agreement on Digitalization of 26 June 2020. It states that a follow-up of the agreement will be carried out within three years after the date of the signature. In this regard, the adoption of the final report by the EU social partners is expected in 2024, four years after the conclusion of the agreement and will build up on the national reports produced in 2021, 2022 and 2023. As a reminder, the agreement on digitalisation was signed by the EU’s cross-sectoral social partners and designed to foster the integration of digital technologies into the workplace, investment in digital skills and the continuous employability of the workforce.
Contact: Guillaume Afellat
The EU and the US held on Tuesday 4 April, the Energy Council Ministerial Meeting in Brussels to further enhance cooperation in the energy sector. Representatives discussed the progress made since the last meeting in February 2022, focusing on energy security and joint decarbonisation efforts.
A specific focus was put on the outlook for next winter, including the situation in Ukraine and Moldova, as well as how to accelerate decarbonisation through clean-energy technologies and energy savings while ensuring that the clean energy transition is socially just. In the joint statement issued after the meeting, the EU and the US reiterated their commitment to coordinate bilateral and multilateral responses to keep global energy markets stable and to support the energy transition required to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. The statement also confirmed the intention to intensify cooperation to reduce dependency on Russia for nuclear materials and fuel cycle services and to support ongoing efforts by affected EU countries to diversify nuclear fuel supplies, as appropriate.
The EU-US Energy Council is the main cooperation framework for mid and long-term issues. Last year, the EU-US Energy Council was accompanied by the EU-US Task Force on Energy Security to tackle the energy crisis spurred by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Contact: Henriette Gleau
On 4 April 2023, the European Commission published a Report on Competition Policy 2022. The report outlines policy developments and some of the most prominent enforcement cases of the last year.
In the report, a considerable extent is dedicated to communicating how the EC approached mitigating external shocks to the economy: the pandemic, rising costs, and the need for energy independence due to the war against Ukraine. In this regard, the Covid Temporary Framework for State aid measures was phased out as in 2022, only 217 decisions were adopted under these rules compared to 2021 when the number was 1180. and the Temporary Crisis Framework to reduce rising costs was adopted and amended twice. In 2022, under TCF, the Commission adopted 195 decisions with an overall budget notified of around EUR 670 billion. All 27 Member States notified such measures, with 53% of the approved aid notified by Germany, 24% by France and 7% by Italy. However, this breakdown only shows the notified aid, not the actual amounts paid out.
The year 2022 marked the entry into force of the Digital Markets Act, an ex-ante regulation aiming to make digital markets fairer by refraining gatekeepers from specific practices that restrict competition and further hinder market entry. On top of the new legislation, the European Commission finalised revisions of Climate, Environmental Protection and Energy Aid Guidelines (‘CEEAG’), State aid Framework for research, development and innovation and State aid rules for Broadband Networks and continued revising the General Block Exemption Regulation (‘GBER’) for State aid.
Contact: Manca Pocivavsek
On Tuesday, 4 April 2023, the European Economic and Social Committee organised a dedicated event about the 30 years of the single market, focusing on "Towards a Net Zero Industrial Future: Harnessing the Power of the Single Market".
The keynote speaker was Mario Monti, former Commissioner for Internal Market, Services, Customs and Taxation (1995-1999) and for Competition (1999-2004). Mr Monti shared his understanding and in-depth experience of the beginnings of the single market. Despite its importance for the EU construction and the EU project, the single market envisaged as the backbone of the EU economy faced several difficulties. Mr Monti highlighted that, in the past 30 years, Member States focused more on creating the single currency, the enlargement process, and the responses to the various crises.
In his view, the main obstacles in a single market are divergent tax systems, state aid (unless it is tightly regulated), and competitive distortions between undertakings. Mr Monti also highlighted the disparity in the enforcement power between the competition policy and the single market, both key areas of EU law. Contrary to the immediacy of competition law, enforcing the rules of the single market rules is slower and, overall, less effective. Improving the enforcement, gathering broader knowledge, and sharing experiences of the single market could further deepen it.
After Mr Monti’s intervention, Pierre-Arnaud Proux, member of the cabinet of European Commission's Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, as well as representatives of employers and trade unions, shared their views. Mr Proux highlighted the Commission’s ongoing efforts in tackling the current crises, whilst facilitating long-term perspectives for the green and digital transition. In this regard, he stressed out that any relaxation of state aid needs to be targeted, proportionate and temporal. The recent proposals of Net-Zero Industry Act and Critical Raw Materials aim at creating favorable market environment for competitiveness of these crucial industries. He furthermore highlighted the need to facilitate investments in research and innovation, as the European economy is still behind the goal of investing at least 3% of GDP.
In the ensuing discussion, priorities such as the need for attracting private investments, enabling frameworks, ensuring regulatory certainty, measuring cumulative effects of legislation and the risks associated with "gold-plating" in the transposition of Eu legislation by Member States were highlighted. The single market should not be the goal in itself but a means for the benefit of society at large.
Contact: Manca Pocivavsek
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