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

Background

The Green Deal, the EU's project aimed at transforming the Union into a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy by tackling the threat of the climate emergency and aiming to ensure zero emissions by 2050, includes various legislative and non-legislative proposals which have been rolled out over the last five years.

Despite the significant progress that has been made, the EESC has identified major challenges for implementing the Green Deal, such as high implementation costs and insufficient consideration of the economic impact on businesses due to poor upfront impact assessments.

Yet the Green Deal cannot succeed without ensuring that businesses are equipped to comply with and benefit from the green transition. In the EESC’s view we are at a critical moment for assessing the Green Deal’s performance.

Therefore, it must be backed up by a truly linked-up industrial strategy that ensures European companies remain competitive and enables a just transition to deliver economic prosperity for everyone.

Key points:

In its opinion, the EESC:

• points out that there is still a long way to go to reach the final objectives of decarbonisation and transition to a more sustainable economy, objectives that were set out by the Commission in its original Green Deal formulation. Companies need much more certainty, global agreement, guidance, sophisticated accountability methods and, ultimately, support from legislators;
• highlights the urgent need for public funds to be strategically allocated to goals that are jointly agreed on by European policy-makers and civil society. This initiative must be closely interlinked with the industrial strategy;
• emphasises that Member States need EU-level support and civil society input to assist companies through guidance, benchmarking and shared learning capacities to adopt and carry out the structural reforms flowing from the Green Deal: bolstering employment rates, enhancing access to skills and labour, and promoting flexibility and efficiency in labour markets.

The text of the draft opinion can be found here.

Additional information

Section: Single Market, Production and Consumption

Opinion number: INT/1068

Opinion type: Exploratory opinion

Rapporteur: Felipe Medina

Reference: Referral, Hungarian Presidency of the Council, 18/3/2024

Date of adoption by section: 5/9/2024

Result of the vote: 82 in favour/0 against/0 abstentions                                                   

Date of adoption in plenary: 18/9/2024 – 19/9/2024

Result of the vote:   in favour/ against/ abstentions

Contacts:

Press officer: Laura Lui          

Tel.: 00 32 2 546 9189

Email:  laurairena.lui@eesc.europa.eu

Administrator: Silvia Staffa

Tel.: + 32 2 546 8378

Email: Silvia.Staffa@eesc.europa.eu