considers that the EU Youth Agenda should tackle the challenges faced by young Europeans and should also determine how the EU can help young people overcome them;
believes that the EU Youth Dialogue should be improved by involving young people's representative bodies in decision-making and by considering young people's new ways of engagement;
emphasises the importance of supporting young people when it comes to housing costs, and of promoting public housing policies.
Energy, including the infrastructure for the transport and distribution, cannot be treated like any other commodity: it is an essential building block of our economic and social system and thus a central part of the provision of public services. Therefore, energy supply is classified as a service of general interest. It is therefore necessary to create regulatory framework conditions for future energy that guarantee both an environmentally-friendly, affordable and reliable supply of energy and the right to energy.
The EESC welcomes the basic objective of the proposed Regulation to strengthen the monitoring and transparency of the wholesale energy markets. It underlines, continuous monitoring and analysis is required so that appropriate interventions and regulatory responses can be made in a timely manner on a sound basis. It also calls for proportionality in data reporting and the application of the once-only principle. The revision should aim at creating a transparent and non-discriminatory system, while avoiding a misuse of data collected.
The objective of providing European Union drivers with a digital driving licence also aims to put an end to differences and bureaucratic delays between the various Member States in processing applications from foreign drivers for exchanging foreign licences, which lead to obstacles to freedom of movement. This driving licence will be held on a mobile phone or any other digital device. The EESC supports this objective, but hopes that paper-based driving licences will remain available to drivers who wish them. Furthermore, for reasons related to the digital inclusion of all age groups, the EESC recommends personalised and free training and coaching on using new digital driving licences.
Uniform measures among the Member States should be adopted to ensure a level playing-field, except in those aspects relating to essential facilities or infrastructure.
welcomes the Commission's idea of setting up a European hydrogen bank and thus creating incentives for the emergence of a hydrogen market. It stresses that fossil energy sources must not be supported with EU funds. The principle "do no harm" must therefore also be applied to funds related to the hydrogen bank. Hydrogen may only be financed with EU funds if the electricity used is generated from sources that are compatible with the Taxonomy Regulation and are considered to make a significant contribution to reducing CO2 emissions.
The EU needs to move beyond emergency fiscal responses and focus on structural changes to allow it to decouple from fossil fuels more quickly. To ensure its smooth and competitive economic development, the EU needs reliable and secure deliveries of affordable energy based on an integrated energy market with a large share of clean energy, which is resilient and able to face disruptions and shocks.
supports the adoption and early implementation of the proposed regulation, which ensures adequate sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards for a transparent, streamlined and safe supply of the market of Northern Ireland from other parts of the UK;
acknowledges the significant effort made to reconcile the facilitation of procedures, to safeguard the integrity of the EU internal market and the protection of public animal and plant health;
urges the Commission to further clarify and provide solutions for the areas of more apparent divergence between SPS standards in the UK and the EU;
