Tag: 2022

The press release issued by the European Commission on 1 December 2022.

The European Parliament, Council and Commission will tomorrow organise a feedback event as a follow-up to the Conference on the Future of Europe.

The event will be an opportunity for the three institutions to explain how they are following up on the proposals stemming from the Conference and to exchange with those citizens who participated in the European Citizens’ Panels, as well as representatives of National Citizens’ Panels and events.

Since the closing of the Conference, the three institutions have worked to fulfil their commitment to act on the Conference’s proposals. They have started the implementation and follow-up process in accordance with their respective competences under the Treaties of the EU. The Conference’s 49 proposals include more than 300 measures on how to achieve them, across nine themes, based on the recommendations from the European and National Citizens’ Panels, as well as input from national events, the Multilingual Digital Platform and discussions within nine thematic working groups and the Plenary.

The Commission’s follow-up

The Commission will tomorrow provide feedback in line with its Communication on “Putting Vision into Concrete Action”, published in June 2022, one month after the end of the Conference.

Most notably, the Commission will explain how it is providing four different types of responses to the proposals stemming from the Conference, through:

• existing initiatives that address the proposals (e.g. the European Climate Law, the circular economy package, the EU global health strategy, the new European Strategy for a Better Internet for Kids, or the Youth Action Plan in EU External Action);
• initiatives already proposed by the Commission, where the European Parliament and the Council are called upon to adopt (e.g. the New Pact on Migration and the Media Freedom Act);
• planned actions which will deliver on the ideas directly stemming from the Conference (e.g. a revision of animal welfare legislation);
• new initiatives inspired by the proposals of the Conference, falling within the remit of the Commission (e.g. a future initiative on mental health).

The Commission’s Work Programme for 2023 is driven by the vision laid out in the conclusions of the Conference. On 14 September 2022, President von der Leyen in her State of the Union speech announced that participatory practices will be embedded in our policy-making toolbox through European citizens’ panels, which are being involved in certain key policy areas. For example, the new generation of citizens’ panels will deliberate on next year’s initiatives on food waste, learning mobility and virtual worlds.

The Commission is also developing a new online interactive tool for citizens’ engagement. This tool will integrate into a one-stop-shop portal all the channels available to citizens to contribute to policy-making: public consultations, European Citizens’ Initiative” and a new multilingual interactive space inspired by the Conference’s online deliberative space.

Members of the College said

Dubravka Šuica, Vice-President for Democracy and Demography said: “The Conference on the Future of Europe gave citizens a greater say about the Europe they want to live in. There is no doubt that we brought citizens to the very centre of EU policy-making. We have committed to ensure that they remain there. The Commission is moving ahead with its plans to respond to the Conference on the Future of Europe. No better time than now to improve our Union.”

The press release issued by the European Commission on 30 November 2022.

The Commission presented today different options to Member States to make sure that Russia is held accountable for the atrocities and crimes committed during the war in Ukraine. The Commission is proposing to create a new structure to manage frozen and immobilised public Russian assets, invest them and use the proceeds for Ukraine. The Commission, while continuing to support the work of the International Criminal Court, is ready to work with the international community on setting up an ad hoc international tribunal or a specialised ‘hybrid’ tribunal to investigate and prosecute Russia’s crime of aggression.

Accountability for international crimes

Ukraine as well as 14 Member States have already started investigations into international crimes committed by Russia. They are supported by Eurojust through joint investigative teams.

All EU Member States are parties to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the EU fully supports the ICC in its investigations into war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, Russia does not accept the jurisdiction of the ICC. This means that, as things stand, the crime of aggression, which is a crime committed by the highest political and military leadership, cannot be prosecuted by the ICC.

This is why the Commission is proposing alternative options to ensure that justice is served:

• A special independent international tribunal based on a multilateral treaty or
• A specialised court integrated in a national justice system with international judges – a hybrid court – could be put in place.

For both options, strong backing of the United Nations would be essential.

Paying for the damage done

Russia and its oligarchs must compensate Ukraine for the damage and destruction that is being caused.

In March 2022, the Commission set up the ‘Freeze and Seize’ Task Force to ensure EU-level coordination of Member States’ actions. With its help the EU Member States have frozen €19 billion of assets belonging to Russian oligarchs. Around €300 billion of the Russian Central Bank reserves are blocked in the EU and other G7 partners. To make the most out of this funds and start rebuilding Ukraine already now, the Commission is proposing, among others:

• In the short-term: set up a structure to manage the frozen public funds, invest them and use the proceeds in favour of Ukraine.
• In the long-term: once the sanctions are lifted, the Central Bank assets will need to be returned. This could be linked to a peace agreement, which compensates Ukraine for the damages it has suffered. The assets that would need to be returned, could be offset against this war reparation.

Next Steps

The options will now be presented by the Commission to the Member States for discussions and to decide on the next steps.

The press release issued by the European Commission on 30 November 2022.

Today, the Commission adopted a new EU Global Health Strategy to improve global health security and deliver better health for all in a changing world. With the Strategy, the EU deepens its leadership and reasserts its responsibility for tackling key global challenges and health inequalities head-on: the unfinished agenda in global health and combatting health threats in the age of pandemics.

The Strategy positions global health as an essential pillar of EU external policy, a critical sector geopolitically and central to EU strategic autonomy. It promotes sustainable, meaningful partnerships of equals drawing on the Global Gateway. As the external dimension of the European Health Union, the strategy is designed to guide EU action for ensuring better preparedness and response to health threats in a seamlessly way.

A new approach to tackling global challenges

The Strategy puts forward three key interrelated priorities in dealing with global health challenges:

• deliver better health and well-being of people across the life course;
• strengthen health systems and advance universal health coverage;
• prevent and combat health threats, including pandemics, applying a One Health approach.

The Strategy seeks to regain the ground lost to reach the universal health-related targets in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. To do so, the strategy refocuses our action on achieving universal health coverage, strengthening primary health care, and tackling the root causes of ill-health like poverty and social inequalities. The strategy stresses the importance of addressing important drivers of ill health such as climate change and environmental degradation, food security, conflict, and other humanitarian crises. Therefore, the Strategy introduces a robust “health-in-all-policies” approach to ensure that a wide variety of policies genuinely contribute to health goals. It identifies three key enablers for better health, namely digitalisation, research, and a skilled labour force with concrete actions to advance globally in these areas

The Strategy also seeks to improve global health security, thus protecting citizens from threats by stepping up prevention, preparedness and response, and early detection. These threats can be chemical, biological, or nuclear — or pandemics, including the silent killer that is antimicrobial resistance. The Strategy suggests a wide variety of actions to address these threats:

• a more equitable access to vaccines and medical treatments by strengthening local pharmaceutical systems and manufacturing capacity
• robust, binding international rules on pandemics
• stronger surveillance and detection of pathogens
• an overall approach that tackles all the links between the environment, animal/plant health and human health (“One Health approach”)

As a new global health order is emerging, the Strategy sets the way for the EU to contribute to shaping it through a more strategic, assertive, and effective engagement by:

• Backing the new kind of robust global governance, the world needs in a complex geopolitical environment. This includes a stronger, more effective, and accountable as well as sustainably financed WHO at the core of the multilateral system, with deepened cooperation through G7, G20, and with other global, regional, and bilateral partners.
• Expanding the EU’s international partnerships on health as part of the Global Gateway, based on co-ownership and co-responsibility from our partners. Improving their health sovereignty will ensure more resilience and autonomy and allow us to focus on those most in need and where our impact will be the greatest. Partnerships with advanced economies will also be pursued.
• Leveraging the Team Europe approach with a genuinely single and powerful voice, ensuring close coordination with Member States so that political action and financial means are closely tied to the new priorities.
• More effective funding by promoting innovative finance, pooling of resources internationally, and co-investing by partner countries and other actors, such as the private sector. Together, the EU and its Member States are amongst the largest funders of global health in the world, the Strategy will make this important financial contribution to global health even more impactful by closer mapping and monitoring of impact.

The press release issued by the European Commission on 25 November 2022.

I expressed to President Zelenskyy the EU’s full solidarity with Ukraine as it suffers at the hands of Putin’s deliberate and barbaric bombing of the country’s civilian infrastructure. I strongly condemn these attacks. Russia must be held accountable for what constitute war crimes.

We are intensifying our efforts and working with partners to provide the emergency support Ukraine needs to restore and maintain power and heating for the civilian population.

Through the EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre, the Commission is currently preparing the delivery to Ukraine as quickly as possible of the following large donations by Member States and directly from the Commission’s rescEU reserve:

• 200 medium-sized transformers and a large autotransformer from Lithuania.
• a medium-sized autotransformer from Latvia.
• 40 heavy generators from the rescEU reserve located in Romania. Each of these generators can provide uninterrupted power to a small to medium sized hospital

The European Commission is additionally working on a new energy rescEU hub in Poland to allow donations from third parties and help with their delivery to Ukraine in a coordinated fashion, particularly with our G7 partners.

We have also reached out to relevant companies in various countries to request vital high voltage equipment, including further autotransformers, and are coordinating with partners to transport them rapidly to Ukraine.

The press release issued by the European Commission on 23 November 2022.

Today, the Commission launched the call for proposals for 2023 under the Erasmus+ programme. With an annual budget of €4.2 billion, Erasmus+ is increasing its support for inclusion, active citizenship and democratic participation, and green and digital transformations in the EU and internationally.

Erasmus+ flagship feature being mobility, next year, the programme will continue to support the movement of school pupils, higher education and vocational education and training (VET) students, adult learners, young people in non-formal learning programmes, educators and staff across borders and towards a European educational and training experience. As of 2023, the programme will feature a new action to support sport coaches through their participation in mobility projects, extending opportunities for cross-European cooperation and learning directly to local grassroots sport organisations and their staff.

The programme will rise to the challenges we expect to face in 2023 by providing meaningful support to learners and educational staff fleeing the war in Ukraine, continuing to strive for a more inclusive programme, and building on the legacy of the European Year of Youth.

Erasmus+ support is aimed at activities feeding into programme priorities in the fields of schools, higher and adult education, VET, as well as youth and sport. Based on open calls for project applications, any public or private body active in the fields of education, training, youth and sport can apply for funding, with the help of Erasmus+ national agencies based in all EU Member States and third countries associated to the programme, and the European Education and Culture Executive Agency.

The entire Erasmus+ programme focuses on four key priorities, among which inclusion and diversity. Organisations and participants with fewer opportunities themselves are at the heart of this priority. The programme therefore keeps on supporting participants’ inclusion mechanisms and dedicated resources to remove any barriers to their participation.

Also in 2023, following up on the European Year of Youth, the programme will continue to ensure that the voices of the youth are heard in the European Union and beyond, especially through an increase in youth activities funded through the Erasmus+. In addition to encouraging across all the different educational sectors projects that seek to support the green transition, the programme continues to strive for carbon-neutrality by promoting sustainable transport modes and more environmentally responsible behaviors.

Furthermore, the programme will keep supporting the youth dimension in existing initiatives and policies. At the same time, project and activities under the Erasmus+ 2023 call will continue feeding into the EU’s commitment to upskilling and reskilling, thereby providing a valuable contribution to the proposal to make 2023 the European Year of Skills.

The press release issued by the European Commission on 22 November 2022.

Today, the Commission has launched the 2023 European Semester cycle of economic policy coordination. The package draws upon the Autumn 2022 Economic Forecast which showed that after a strong first half of the year, the EU economy has now entered a much more challenging phase. While swift and well-coordinated policy action during the COVID-19 pandemic is paying off, the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine confronts the EU with multiple and complex challenges. Historically high energy prices, high inflation rates, supply shortages, increased debt levels and rising borrowing costs are affecting business activity and eroding households’ purchasing power.

These challenges call for coordinated action to secure adequate and affordable energy supply, safeguard economic and financial stability, and protect vulnerable households and companies while preserving the sustainability of public finances. At the same time, rapid action is needed to boost potential growth and quality job creation and deliver on the green and digital transitions. Economic policy coordination through the European Semester will help Member States achieve these objectives by setting priorities and providing clear and well-coordinated policy guidance for the year to come.

Annual Sustainable Growth Survey

This year’s Annual Sustainable Growth Survey puts forward an ambitious agenda to further strengthen coordinated EU policy responses to mitigate the negative impacts of energy shocks in the short term. At the same time, it is crucial to continue increasing social and economic resilience and fostering sustainable and inclusive growth in the medium term, while maintaining flexibility to tackle new challenges. This approach is in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which are an integral part of the European Semester.

The four priorities under the European Semester remain: promoting environmental sustainability, productivity, fairness and macroeconomic stability, with a view to fostering competitive sustainability.

The Recovery and Resilience Facility, with a budget of €723.8 billion in grants and loans, is continuing to provide a steady stream of investments in European businesses, infrastructure, and skills, and is supporting an ambitious reform agenda until 2026. As of today, the Commission has endorsed 26 national Recovery and Resilience Plans, all of which have been approved by the Council. So far, payments disbursed under the Facility amount to over €135 billion.

REPowerEU, the EU’s plan to rapidly phase out the EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels, will mobilise additional resources to increase the resilience of EU energy systems and prevent energy poverty through targeted investments and reforms.

Opinions on the draft budgetary plans of euro area Member States
The Commission assessed the consistency of the draft budgetary plans for 2023 with the Council Recommendations of July 2022. They take into account the continued application in 2023 of the general escape clause of the Stability and Growth Pact.

Under the fiscal recommendations for 2023, low and medium-debt Member States should ensure that the growth of nationally financed primary current expenditure is in line with an overall neutral policy stance. High-debt Member States were recommended to ensure prudent fiscal policy, in particular by limiting the growth of nationally financed primary current expenditure below medium-term potential output growth.

The Commission invites Belgium, Portugal, Austria, Lithuania, Germany, Estonia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Slovakia to take the necessary measures within the national budgetary process to ensure that their 2023 budgets are fully in line with the Council’s Recommendations.

Given that Croatia will join the euro area on 1 January 2023, the Commission welcomes its decision to present a draft budgetary plan for the first time.

Euro area recommendation

This recommendation presents tailored advice to euro area Member States for the period 2023–2024 on those topics that affect the functioning of the euro area as a whole.

Euro area Member States should:

• Continue to coordinate fiscal policies to support the timely return of inflation to the European Central Bank’s 2% medium-term target;
• Sustain a high level of public investment to foster social and economic resilience and support the green and digital transitions;
• Ensure that support provided to households and companies that come under financial stress because of the energy crisis is cost-effective, temporary, and targeted to vulnerable ones, in particular SMEs. In that respect, the recommendation suggests setting up a two-tier energy pricing system that ensures incentives for energy savings, replacing broad-based price measures. Under this system, vulnerable consumers could benefit from regulated prices.
• Foster wage developments that protect wage earners’ purchasing power, while limiting second-round effects on inflation. Develop and adapt social support system as needed.

• Further improve active labour market policies and address skills shortages.
• Ensure the effective involvement of social partners in policy-making and strengthen social dialogue.

• Further improve the business environment and preserve macro-financial stability.

Alert Mechanism Report

The Alert Mechanism Report is a screening exercise to detect risks of potential macroeconomic imbalances. It identifies Member States for which in-depth reviews are needed to assess whether they are affected by imbalances requiring policy action.

This year’s Alert Mechanism Report concludes that in-depth reviews are warranted for 17 Member States: Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden (which were subject to an in-depth review in the previous annual cycle of Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure surveillance), as well as Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Slovakia (which were not subject to an in-depth review in 2021/2022).

Proposal for a Joint Employment Report

The proposal for the Joint Employment Report (JER) confirms that the EU labour market has fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, showing a strong performance and surpassing pre-pandemic employment levels since the third quarter of 2021. Despite strong growth, young people, women, and vulnerable groups, such as people with disabilities or with a migrant background, need further support to join the job market. Policies to help workers get in-demand skills need to be strengthened to mitigate the risks of high labour and skills shortages and to support job-to-job transitions in changing labour markets, especially against the background of the green and digital transitions. Promoting just labour market transitions is important to reach the 2030 EU headline targets on employment and skills, which are integrated into the JER.

Price increases since 2021, accelerated by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, have put pressure on both the EU economy and households. Real GDP growth slowed down in the spring of 2022 and household income in real terms decreased for the first time since the COVID‑19 pandemic. In this context, collective bargaining and fair and adequate minimum wages are powerful tools to preserve the purchasing power of wages while promoting employment. To complement this, action should be taken to improve the coverage and adequacy of minimum income protection. This will also contribute to the 2030 EU headline targets on employment and poverty reduction.

Post-programme surveillance reports

Post-programme surveillance assesses the repayment capacity of Member States that have benefited from financial assistance programmes. The post-programme surveillance reports for Ireland, Greece, Spain, Cyprus and Portugal conclude that all five Member States retain the capacity to repay their debt.

Today’s post-programme surveillance report for Greece is the first one prepared for the country, following the end of the enhanced surveillance framework in August 2022. The report finds that Greece has taken the necessary actions to fulfil its commitments, despite the challenging circumstances due to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. This report could serve as a basis for the Eurogroup to decide on the release of a final tranche of policy-contingent debt measures agreed in June 2018.

Next steps

The Commission invites the Eurogroup and the Council to discuss the documents presented today and to endorse the guidance offered. The Commission also looks forward to engaging in a constructive dialogue with the European Parliament on the contents of this package and as well as on each of the subsequent steps in the European Semester cycle.

The press release issued by the European Commission on 22 November 2022.

Today, the Commission has continued its response to the ongoing energy crisis by proposing a Market Correction Mechanism to protect EU businesses and households from episodes of excessively high gas prices in the EU. This complements measures to reduce gas demand and ensure security of supply through diversification of energy supplies. The new mechanism aims to reduce the volatility on European gas markets while safeguarding the security of gas supply.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and weaponisation of energy supplies, natural gas prices have seen unprecedented price peaks across the EU, reaching all-time highs in the second half of August this year. The extreme price spike over almost two weeks in August was highly damaging for the European economy, with contagion effects on electricity prices and an increase in overall inflation. The Commission is proposing to prevent the repetition of such episodes with a temporary and well-targeted instrument to automatically intervene on the gas markets in case of extreme gas price hikes. 

A safety ceiling on gas prices

The proposed instrument consists of a safety price ceiling of €275 on the month-ahead TTF derivatives. The Title Transfer Facility (TTF), which is the EU’s most commonly used gas price benchmark, plays a key role in the European wholesale gas market. The mechanism would be triggered automatically when both of the following conditions are met:

• the front-month TTF derivate settlement price exceeds €275 for two weeks;
• TTF prices are €58 higher than the LNG reference price for 10 consecutive trading days within the two weeks.

When these conditions are met, the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) will immediately publish a market correction notice in the Official Journal of the European Union and inform the Commission, European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and the European Central Bank (ECB). The following day, the price correction mechanism will enter into force and orders for front-month TTF derivatives exceeding the safety price ceiling will not be accepted. The mechanism can be activated as of 1 January 2023. 

Safeguards to ensure security of supply and market stability

The proposed Council Regulation contains safeguards to avoid disruption to the energy and financial markets. To help avoid security of supply problems, the price ceiling is limited to only one futures product (TTF month-ahead products) so that market operators will still be able to meet demand requests and procure gas on the spot market and over-the-counter. To ensure gas demand does not increase, the proposal requires Member States to notify within two weeks from the activation of the Market Correction Mechanism which measures they have taken to reduce gas and electricity consumption. Once today’s proposal for a Market Correction Mechanism is adopted in Council, the Commission will also propose to declare an EU-alert under the Save Gas for a Safe Winter regulation that was adopted in July, triggering mandatory gas savings to ensure demand reduction. In addition, there will be constant monitoring by ESMA, ECB, the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), the Gas Coordination Group and the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSO-G).

To react to possible unintended negative consequences of the price limit, the proposal foresees that the mechanism can be suspended immediately at any time. This can happen:

• Automatically, with a deactivation, when its operation is no longer justified by the situation on the natural gas market, namely when the gap between the TTF price and the LNG price is no longer met during 10 consecutive trading days.
• By a Commission suspension decision when risks to the Union’s security of supply, to demand reduction efforts, to intra-EU flows of gas, or financial stability are identified.

There is also a possibility for the Commission to prevent the activation of the mechanism in case relevant authorities, including the ECB, warn of such risks materialising.

The press release issued by the European Commission on 21 November 2022.

At the COP27 UN Climate Change Conference which ended on Sunday morning in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, the European Commission showed ambition and flexibility to keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees within reach. After a difficult week of negotiations, a strong and united European effort helped secure a hard-fought deal to keep the targets of the Paris Agreement alive. The EU’s bridge-building also helped to put in place balanced new funding arrangements, with an expanded donor base, to help vulnerable communities to face loss and damage caused by climate change.

On mitigation, Parties agreed that limiting global warming to 1.5C requires rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, reducing them by 43 percent by 2030 relative to the 2019 level. They also recognised that this requires accelerated action in this critical decade, and reiterated the call from the Glasgow Climate Pact for nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to be updated as necessary to align with the Paris Agreement temperature goal, by the end of 2023. They also affirmed that the Glasgow Climate Pact will guide a new Mitigation Work Programme to encourage Parties to align their targets and actions towards net zero.

On loss and damage, the Parties decided to establish new funding arrangements for assisting developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. This includes a new fund with a focus on addressing loss and damage, to be established by a transitional committee which would also look into expanding sources of funding.

The Implementation COP

The final COP27 outcomes today complement the many bilateral and multilateral agreements secured by the Commission in the past two weeks. President von der Leyen participated in the Leaders’ Summit at the beginning of COP27 and signed Partnerships with Kazakhstan on raw materials, batteries and renewable hydrogen and with Namibia on sustainable raw materials and renewable hydrogen, and announced with Egyptian president El-Sisi a Strategic Partnership on Renewable Hydrogen, which was signed by Executive Vice-President Timmermans and Commissioner Kadri Simson. President von der Leyen also launched Forest and Climate Partnerships with Congo, Guyana, Mongolia, Zambia and Uganda. The importance of nature to the interconnected climate and biodiversity crises will also be a key focus of the upcoming COP15 on Biodiversity, which takes place in Montreal, Canada in December.

At an event to take stock of the Global Methane Pledge launched by the EU and US one year ago, Mr Timmermans welcomed the growing support for this initiative, which is now backed by over 150 countries. Executive Vice-President Timmermans also announced a new Team Europe Initiative to provide over €1 billion of financing for helping Africa to adapt to climate change. During COP27 the EU also welcomed and endorsed South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Investment Plan, and signed a new Just Energy Transition Partnership with Indonesia at the G20 in Bali.

President Ursula von der Leyen said on the outcome of COP27: “COP27 has confirmed that the world will not backtrack on the Paris Agreement, and is an important step towards climate justice. However science is clear that much more is needed to keep the planet liveable. What is equally clear is that the EU played a key role in Sharm el-Sheikh and will not relent on its domestic and international climate action. I thank Executive Vice-President Timmermans and our negotiating team for working night and day to unblock the difficult talks, and avoiding a breakdown of the UNFCCC process that will remain critical. Our negotiating team was able to build trust with our partners around the world, by staying strong on mitigation and showing flexibility on funding for the loss and damage caused by climate change.”