Policy Kit - Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU

SGI Europe’s Priorities for the Czech Presidency

Managing the refugee crisis and Ukraine’s post-war recovery

SGI Europe supports the EU’s fast and determined answer to support refugees, allowing immediate protection whilst boosting welcoming capacities. With the EU Social and Economic Partners, SGI Europe proposes a multilevel, cross-sectoral approach for ensuring access for refugees and migrants to essential services such as housing, education and healthcare and facilitating the integration into the labour market.

SGI Europe also engaged with utilities and Ukrainian providers of services of general interest to identify how the EU can support them, especially in line with the expectations of the reconstruction, the EU accession process and the incorporation of the EU acquis.

REPowerEU and Energy Prices

In light of the war in Ukraine, SGI Europe welcomes the EU initiatives to improve the security of supply, energy efficiency, the roll-out of renewables and decarbonisation by electrification and hydrogen.

Providing citizens with stable energy costs must remain the priority. With prices currently significantly higher, and an overall price ceiling on the EU gas market should only be considered in very exceptional situations, forms of compensation to citizens and enterprises might be needed. It is also essential to lower energy demand: maintaining artificially lower prices might aggravate the current crisis by keeping gas consumption at a high level.

Employment and Social Affairs

With rising demand for specific skills, many sectors currently experience skill shortages across various occupations. These shortages highlight ‘supply side’ inadequacies within educational institutions, negatively impacting economic prospects and calling for a better alignment between education systems and labour markets, including increased involvement of social partners in shaping curricula.

Social partners have a broad range of responsibilities, which must be acknowledged at the EU level. They are the best placed to shape labour markets’ dynamics, including wage-setting systems via collective agreements or defining contractual agreements between employers and workers. EU legislation should therefore include sufficient flexibility and respect for Member States' traditions and the autonomy and responsibility of the social partners at all levels.

Economic policy

The Czech Presidency comes at a crucial moment for keeping the momentum of the post-COVID recovery. The significant impact of the war in Ukraine makes the continuation of the disbursements of funds to implement the national recovery and resilience plans a crucial priority.

The extension of the general escape clause to 2023 recognises the high uncertainty and downside risks. It should not prevent the EU from reviewing its economic governance. The new fiscal architecture should reconcile growth-oriented policies with a sustainable path of debt reduction and fiscal consolidation. It should provide investment-oriented flexibility for green and digital by better distinguishing growth-enhancing productive investments and unproductive ones.

Conference on the Future of Europe

Bringing together institutions, citizens, social partners and civil society, the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) provided feedback on the EU actions. It should lead to improving our joint project. The CoFoE was made possible by the political will of the EU institutions. Its success stemmed from the cooperation between EU, national, regional and local governments, citizens, social partners and civil society. SGI Europe calls on national and European institutions to listen to the citizens' demands and translate them into concrete initiatives.

Environment

SGIs are committed to supporting the EU transition to a carbon-neutral model. This transition must balance the social, environmental, and economic dimensions. The EU runs on SGIs, including local public services enterprises and semi-public SMEs, which are vital elements of our socio-economic model.

Employers and providers of SGIs need the proper framework to ensure the transition is just for workers and citizens. The transitional pathways must offer workers quality jobs and provide financing incentives for citizens to renovate their homes and buy carbon-free. Coherence and a level playing field for all technologies must be ensured, with legal certainty, clarity, and consistency, to reach climate neutrality by 2050.