The European Union’s ambitious climate targets have significantly impacted resource and energy-intensive industries (REIIs), which are crucial to the EU economy. These industries face rising costs due to high energy prices, carbon pricing, and regulatory changes. This opinion reflects on the optimal solutions to maintain the competitiveness of EU industry in face if the rising energy prices and the costs required to support the transition towards a low-carbon economy. The EU Youth Test at the EESC was applied to this opinion.
The EESC supports fostering joint programmes among higher education institutions within and beyond European University Alliance projects, ensuring quality assurance and including all relevant stakeholdersin their implementation. It emphasises the need for broad collaboration among stakeholders to effectively implement the initiatives, particularly highlighting the fundamental values of student and staff participation following the Bologna Process. The EESC calls for the involvement of relevant labour market stakeholders in defining study programmes that have particular relevance to the labour market. It emphasises the need for adequate resources to implement these initiatives effectively.
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) was asked by the upcoming Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU to produce an exploratory opinion on paving the way to EU accession for the Western Balkans, underlining the benefits of the future enlargement to the region from a holistic point of view.
Download — Stellungnahme des Ausschusses: Ensuring equal opportunities and social inclusion in access to culture, lifelong learning and the role of public cultural institutions in this process
This opinion presents recommendations on ways to help persons with disabilities enter the open labour market and better implement the aims highlighted in the Disability Employment Package. It focuses on two topics: the social integration, complex rehabilitation and occupational rehabilitation of persons with disabilities and changed working capacity; and a EU-level reflection around the need for reasonable accommodation.
Download — Stellungnahme des Ausschusses: Promoting the social integration of persons with disabilities and persons with changed working capacity
The well-functioning Single Market is a main asset of the EU. It is clearly the quality of the overall legislative framework that matters for businesses when making investment decisions, being a key competitiveness factor.
Download — Stellungnahme des Ausschusses: The results and experiences of efforts to close the innovation gap in the EU in the light of Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe programme
Exploratory opinion requested by the Hungarian presidency on the policy measures and framework needed to support the EU industry to transform and decarbonize.
Download — Stellungnahme des Ausschusses: What EU policies are needed for enterprises/business to become competitive in a fair, sustainable, stronger and more resilient way to realize the European Green Deal
The European Green Deal set the path for a critical transition related to climate and circularity. The current transformation change concerns all sectors of economy, mainly transport, energy, industry and agriculture. It is critical to ensure a synergetic approach between the goals of the Green Deal and other important EU goals, such as innovation, competitiveness and access to critical raw materials. A better understanding of how the different EU adopted legislative acts interact with each other is needed. Moreover, the Green Deal legislation should also reflect the current economic and political situation in which we are living.
The own initiative opinion aims at identifying acts and particular measures stemming from the Green Deal that need a recalibration in order to avoid any contradictions, damage to the environment, consumer health and EU competitiveness.
Download — Stellungnahme des Ausschusses: Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest – impact on climate change and the global environment; consequences for companies, workers and population
The EESC underlines that youth participation mechanisms need to be transparent and that the interests and concerns of young people need to be considered at each stage of the policy-making cycle. It proposes that guidelines are set up to support the monitoring and dissemination of the EUYD (EU Youth Dialogue) outcomes and impact and that an online repository be set up where collected documents would be made available. It calls on the Commission and the Member States to support long-term, sustainable and well-functioning management of the EUYD, including the establishment of institutional memory and capacity building processes.
Climate change is a matter of urgency and demands a green shift in our economies. To achieve the EU's climate targets, a profound modernisation of the capital stock is needed. This entails a massive expansion of public investments. The need for an EU-level investment fund to finance the green transition is also a matter of economic strength and sustainable competitiveness. One central element of closing the financing gap is an investment friendly reform of the EU fiscal rules. While the reform process is still ongoing and is supposed to be finished by the end of this legislature, it is already clear that the fiscal space for public investments at national level will not significantly increase with the reform.
Consumers are increasingly mindful of environmental and social issues when buying products, emphasizing the importance of information on product origin and distribution in their decision-making process.
