Newsflash - 8 December 2023

SGI Europe Priorities for 2024-2029 and the way to the EU elections 2024

On Wednesday 6 December, SGI Europe held the meeting of its General Assembly. On this occasion, a strong focus was put on the strategy and priorities for the association ahead of the European elections, which will take place on 6-9 June 2024.

With EU elections scheduled in June 2024, the future of Europe will take shape in the aftermath of the completion of Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine. With SGI Europe’s priorities now set for the next mandate, SGI Europe will call for SGIs to play an essential role in shaping the future of the EU, building upon the European roots of SGI enterprises, which serve, directly and indirectly, the EU economy and its citizens. With the emergence of new policy priorities at the EU level, we now call for SGIs to be considered as a pillar for the future of the EU and to be provided with the right framework to flourish.

For the next five years, SGI Europe's priorities will focus on six main calls:

• Re-create the conditions for a fair and just EU through future-proofed labour markets, social dialogue, and continued access to affordable, accessible and quality SGIs;
• Set up EU Public Goods and transform the Single Market to ensure a level playing field between public and private undertakings;
• Formalise foresight and anticipate crises, including through the “Beyond GDP” approach;
• Ensure a “human-centric” approach to AI and develop digital networks;
• Set forward a framework conducive to investments;
• Prevent administrative burden through SGI-oriented Impact Assessments.

On top of adopting these strategic priorities, SGI Europe’s General Assembly also welcomed Philipp Schulmeister, Director for Campaigns at the European Parliament. The exchange of views with Mr Schulmeister addressed how the upcoming elections can help develop the EU democracy and how SGIs can play a role in that endeavour.

The EU elections will be a the heart of our activities in 2024, and we will continue to push for a better consideration of SGIs on the EU agenda.

Contact: Maxime Staelens

SGI Europe event: “Democracy in action: putting citizens and SGIs at the heart of the Single Market”

On Thursday 7 December, SGI Europe organised an event with Enrico Letta on the state of play of the Single Market, which will be the basis for the contribution of SGI providers to the report commissioned by the Council and the Commission on the Future of the EU Single Market. On this occasion, SGI Europe also welcomed Pierre-Yves Dermagne, Belgian Vice-Prime Minister and Minister for Economy and Labour, who gave a keynote introduction on the priorities for the upcoming Belgian Presidency of the Council.

The first panel focused on SGIs’ commitment to a dynamic EU, and featured the participation of Pascal Bolo, SGI Europe President, Milena Angelova and Filippo Brandolini, SGI Europe Vice-Presidents, and Ozgür Öner, EU Director at GdW. This panel was the occasion for speakers to highlight the opportunities and challenges they are facing in their respective sectors within the EU Single Market.

The second panel, “SGIs in the EU Single Market”, brought together representatives from the SGI Network: Alberto Mazzola, CER Executive Director; Botond Szebeny, PostEurop General Secretary; Leonie Martin, Advisor to HOSPEEM; and Marin Gaudron representing CEMR.  It was the perfect occasion to emphasise the challenges and opportunities that each of their sectors (railways, postal services, hospitals & healthcare, local governments) are facing within the EU Single Market and further emphasise that the EU Single Market must benefit all and not only be focused on the economic and competitiveness dimensions.

Finally, a third panel, organised in cooperation with the European Movement International (EMI), consisted of an exchange of views with citizens who took part to the Conference on the Future of Europe.

Contact: Benoît Cassorla

The ‘La Hulpe’ Declaration on the Future Social Agenda of the EU

The forthcoming Belgian presidency of the Council is consulting EU cross-sectoral social partner organisations and representatives of civil society to organise a Social Summit in La Hulpe in Belgium on 16 April 2024.

In this context, the Belgian presidency intends to prepare an interinstitutional “La Hulpe declaration” on the future social agenda of the EU, to be signed by the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Belgian Presidency (on behalf of the Council), social partners and civil society organisations. The Declaration will aim to prepare the future social agenda of the 2024-2029 period and reconfirm the European Pillar of Social Rights as the main compass for policy-making in employment and social affairs. It aims to reaffirm the key principles related to ‘Social Europe’ and identify key issues that should be prioritised in the next EU term.

After two rounds of informal discussions with the social partners, the next important step toward such a declaration is the informal EPSCO to be held in Namur on 11-12 January, where a discussion with Member States and stakeholders on the future social agenda of the EU will take place. Several processes will be launched on this occasion to ensure that the content of the final declaration will have broad support within the European Union. The Belgian Presidency will invite the advisory committees to the EPSCO (EMCO/SPC) to draft an opinion on the priorities for the future social agenda of the EU with the European Pillar of Social Rights as a framework. This opinion is foreseen to be endorsed during the formal EPSCO Council of March.

SGI Europe is closely associated with this process, aiming for a new joint interinstitutional declaration on the future of Social Europe. It will aim at having services of general interest recognised as a central component of the European Pillar of Social Rights.

Contact: Guillaume Afellat

Council reached a general approach to the Net Zero Industry Act

On Thursday 7 December, the Council adopted its general approach on the draft regulation for the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA). The core of this regulation is to accelerate the deployment of clean technology to boost the energy transition in Europe by strengthening legislative procedures and economic competitiveness.

The Council's position supports this primary objective of the Net-Zero Industry Act and introduces several additional proposals. The Council proposes to enlarge the scope of application for strategic net-zero technologies from 8 to 10 by also including nuclear and sustainable alternative fuels. The mandate also broadens the list of non-strategic net-zero technologies to biotech climate and energy solutions, other nuclear technologies and transformative industrial technologies for energy-intensive industries. More precise rules for permit-granting procedures are under the Council's proposals for strategic net-zero technologies paved and proposes additional support to crowd-in investments.

In public procurement, the Council proposes to simplify the rules and bring more flexibility compared to the proposal of the European Parliament under the NZIA. The general approach gives more diversification in the supply of strategic technologies to the EU, while safeguarding sufficient flexibility for contracting authorities. For instance, public authorities can choose a provider that is not the cheapest if it contributes more to the environmental sustainability and resilience of the Member state. In SGI Europe’s point of view, this is a positive development to ensure that services of general interest are not limited to expensive locally produced or non-local (outside of the EU) products.

Lastly, there is general support by the Council on the broad objectives for European Net-zero Industry Academies to train and reskill workers to adapt to the fast-growing challenges of new technologies.

Contact: Henriette Gleau

Agreement on the Council’s General Approach to the Gigabit Infrastructure Act

On 5 December, the Council agreed to its general approach to the proposed Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA), which has been brought forward to replace the Broadband Cost-Reducing Directive (BRCD).

The proposed GIA is an essential piece of legislation to achieve Europe's connectivity goals and targets set out in the EU's digital compass for this decade adopted last year, and to implement the next-generation electronic communications network in the EU. The proposal aims to lower the unnecessarily high costs of the electronic communication infrastructure deployment, speed up the deployment of the networks, facilitate the access to building physical infrastructure, and provide legal certainty and transparency for all economic actors.

The Council’s common position supports the main proposals brought forward by the Commission and amended some aspects, including:

• The notion of ‘tacit approval’ was deleted.
• An exception for a transitional period for smaller municipalities was included.
• The factors when calculating fair conditions for access were clarified.
• It was also clarified that not only fibre can be used to reach very high capacity.
• Number of carve-outs for critical national infrastructure were included in the text.

Following the adoption by the Council, the Spanish presidency will be able to engage in talks with the European Parliament ("trilogues") and intends to make as much progress as possible in these negotiations until the end of the year.

Contact: Maxime Staelens