The EESC's recommendations on the reform and investment proposals formulated as part of the 2024-2025 European Semester cycle

Key points

The EESC:

• calls on the European Commission to formulate more tailored recommendations concerning sound fiscal policies for financial stability, long-term sustainable growth and competitiveness, public spending on crucial public services, services of general interest, and social policies, as well as the digital and green transitions;
• calls on the Commission and the Member States to increase systematic communication and awareness-raising around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the country-specific recommendations (CSRs);
• reiterates its call for a structured consultation process to be established at European level;
• calls for the reformed partnership principle to be included in the European Semester;
• calls on the Commission to develop clear and harmonised guidance in an EU regulation for Member States on how to involve stakeholders in a mandatory, systematic, structural and meaningful way;
• considers that the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is currently playing a key role in supporting investment and reforms;
• calls for improved coordination, planning and resource allocation to overcome delays, and for streamlined processes;
• insists on the need for transparency on the final recipients of the funds and has called on the Commission and national governments to simplify procedures, reduce bureaucracy and provide support to ensure that the plans are executed in an effective and timely manner;
• calls for the next RRF annual report to include a thematic analysis of the involvement of social partners, civil society organisations (CSOs), national parliaments and local and regional authorities;
• calls for the deadline for spending RRF funds to be extended, at least until the next multiannual financial framework (MFF) in 2028;
• reiterates the need to create a Strategic Investment Fund, to boost the EU's financing capacity, and at the same time, stresses the need to rapidly increase a massive mobilisation of private savings through the completion of the Capital Markets Union and to increase the EIB’s financial capacity;
• calls on the Commission to urgently review the structure and timing of the Semester, to ensure future interconnections with the Competitiveness Coordination Tool, in the interests of transparency and to enable all actors involved to fully play their respective role The revised EU economic governance framework, the already announced links between the Competitiveness Coordination Tool and the Semester, the possible links with the  future spending of the next MFF, and at least part of the future Cohesion Fund, are signs of progress in this area;
• proposes that, as part of the Semester, the European Commission should apply indicators inherent to the wellbeing economy approach in order to assess the state of each Member State.