9 December 2022
On 8 December 2022, SGI Europe’s General Assembly elected Pascal Bolo as President of SGI Europe. Milena Angelova, Filippo Brandolini, Ingbert Liebing and Jacek Cieplak were elected Vice-Presidents. Read more.
Contact: Maxime Staelens
On 8 December, SGI Europe organized the final conference of the project ‘Involving SGIs in the European Semester’, co-funded by the European Commission. The conference was kick-started by keynote address of Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commission Executive Vice-President, and an introduction by Pascal Bolo, SGI Europe President, as well as the presentation of the project's methodology. Two roundtable discussions then gave the opportunity to SGI Europe members involved in the project to present the state of play of the national dimensions of the EU Semester. Read more about the final conference and read the final report.
Contact: Stefan Enica
On 2 December 2022, the EU institutions organized together a Feedback Event for the Conference on the Future of Europe. Gathering 600 citizens and representatives of the social partners and the civil society involved in the works of the CoFoE, the took place at the European Parliament and provided an opportunity to further call for a concrete follow-up to the proposals put forward during the closing event on 9 May.
In addition, alongside citizens comments and reactions, representatives from the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the EU (COSAC), the European Committee of the Regions, the European Economic and Social Committee, social partners and organized civil society, also received the occasion to share their reactions and their commitments to the results of the Conference.
On that occasion, Valeria Ronzitti, SGI Europe General Secretary, addressed the event on behalf of the employers of the EU Social to take the floor on the behalf of employers’ organizations. She highlighted, in particular, the proposal put forward by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for a Competitiveness Check to be included in all future EU policies and legislative proposals, building up on a request of employers’ representatives during the CoFoE.
Ms Ronzitti also recalled that while Much can be done within the Treaties, we also need to go the extra mile to bring to life CoFoE proposals, on proposals such as the Energy or Health Union which would also be beneficial for SGI providers and employers.
Contact: Benoît Cassorla
On 5 December 2022, SGI Europe organized the final conference of its project ‘Green Skills in VET’, co-funded by the European Commission. On this occasion, SGI Europe and its members discussed the main outcomes of the project, which are compiled in the final report (in English) and the political report (in English, French, German, and Spanish). Read more.
Contact: Stefan Enica
On Monday 28 November, the Platform on Sustainable Finance, which has been the advisory expert group to develop the EU Taxonomy, officially published the final part of its report on the Supplementary report on the technical screening criteria. The report includes criteria recommendations for a total of 24 activities. It also includes a conceptual framework for enabling activities that the Platform has developed and a dissenting opinion on forestry criteria prepared by two members (Business Europe and the Confederation of European Forest Owners with support of SGI Europe).
It completes the already-published and agreed first part of the EU Taxonomy 4 recommendations on technical screening criteria published by the Platform on 30 March and adds to the big EU Taxonomy package that includes the recommendations on the Report on Data and usability of the EU Taxonomy, the Report on Minimum safeguards, the Social Taxonomy and the Extended Taxonomy published on 29 March.
The report is now being assessed by the European Commission. The initial plan was to have the recommendations from the Platform reviewed by the European Commission, before the final report is being scrutinised by the public via a public consultation by the end of the year to then come into force by 1 January 2023. Due to major delays, as the discussion and extra consultation work on the Extra Delegated Act on Nuclear and Natural Gas in February, the enforcement of the criteria will be further postponed. We keep SGI Europe members updated on this development.
Contact: Henriette Gleau
On Thursday 8 December, the Commission presented a draft proposal for a Directive on VAT in the Digital age. The proposal is a part of the VAT Action plan that was presented in April 2016, and aims at regulating digital reporting requirements, platform economy and single VAT registration.
As regards digital reporting requirements, the fragmentation across the Member States causes a VAT gap between Member States of EUR 19bn. As it stands now, if a Member State wants to apply only e-invoicing, it needs to derogate from the rules, meaning that member states cannot by default require only e-invoicing. Furthermore, the reporting is reported to be too slow, with information reported one month later opening the door for possible tax fraud. The new regulation proposes a real-time digital reporting for VAT purposes based on e-invoicing, which will help to reduce VAT fraud, lower the administrative burden and compliance costs.
Platform economy will be regulated for short-term accommodation and passenger transport services, which will remedy the inequalities between the online and traditional services. Lastly, the single VAT registration would allow more companies to register only once for VAT purposes for their activities across the EU. This would mean that they could fulfil their VAT obligations by registering only once in EU, via a single online portal in one language.
SGI Europe exchanged with the Commission on VAT during the last PSB meeting on 22 November 2022. Although services provided domestically/locally are not excluded, the new rules will largely impact trade between Member states. Therefore, we will closely monitor the developments.
Contact: Manca Pocivavsek
Join us, stay informed
Subscribe to have all the latest news and developments delivered straight to your inbox.