Rapporteur:

Rudy DE LEEUW

Co-rapporteur:

Arnold PUECH d’ALISSAC

1.1.

1.2.

1.3.

1.4.

1.5.

1.6.

1.7.

2.1.

2.2.

2.3.

2.4.

2.5.

3.1.

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Introducing a social dimension to the work of Climate Observatories and establishing an EU Just Transition Observatory responsible for research, data collection, monitoring of stakeholder involvement and the development of a Just Transition Scoreboard setting out methodologies, targets and monitoring processes based on an agreed set of principles. The Observatory should assess and anticipate internal and external impacts and monitor just transition processes and strategies using quantitative and qualitative data. It should research and monitor the involvement of the social partners in all stages of transitions and provide detailed information on redundancy and transition numbers, retraining and apprenticeship numbers, public funding, and monitoring, enforcement and outcomes of contingencies.

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Adopting a whole-of-government approach in the institutions, including integrating the objectives and principles of the JTPF into the agenda of relevant ministries, Directorates-General and Council configurations, and promoting better coordination between them, including through joint monitoring and evaluation of policies and actions through working groups, joint Council meetings, etc., guided by the facts and figures provided by the Just Transition Observatory.

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Appointing the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for the EGD as Commissioner for the Just Transition, with a mandate to implement a just transition in coordination and close cooperation with the other Directorates-General of the European Commission and Council configurations, including in the European Semester. In the European Parliament, appointing a permanent rapporteur on a just transition with reporting obligations and integrating a just transition in all committees and files.

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Revising the Regulation on the Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action (10) and the European Climate Law to enable a systemic approach to multi-level governance dialogue and facilitate the integration of just transition considerations into climate and energy planning and policy processes, as well as all other policy areas, including the Common Agricultural Policy.

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Ensuring policy coherence in terms of the EU’s international relations in order to maximise the benefits and limit the burdens of a JTPF for third countries, taking into account common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, through mutually beneficial international partnerships and agreements underpinned by a human rights-based approach (11).

4.1.

4.2.

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Strengthening the EGD to enhance a just transition (16) and ensuring that it is followed up by a comprehensive EU sustainable development strategy encompassing a Green and Social Deal that anticipates, plans and implements the necessary green transition in a just and equitable way, maximising the economic and social benefits of the transition while ensuring that the required contributions are fairly shared across society.

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Strengthening the implementation of the environmental and social dimensions of the European Semester by exploring social and environmental conditionalities, ensuring that country-specific recommendations pay proper attention to all three dimensions, and improving the Social Scoreboard to effectively monitor the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights.

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Reforming the Stability and Growth Pact to monitor, coordinate and facilitate the spending and reforms needed to achieve the objective of a just transition, including the possibility of introducing a ‘golden rule for investment’  (17) to allow Member States to allocate sufficient resources to support a just transition and meet EU targets (18).

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Building on the work of the Council of the European Union, exploring the possibility of introducing a ‘Social Convergence Framework’ in the European Semester, aimed at promoting upward social convergence and the pursuit of social priorities, embedded in the European Pillar of Social Rights, as reaffirmed by EU Heads of State and Government in the 2021 Porto Declaration (19).

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Adopting an ambitious EU strategy to manage resources sustainably and to reduce demand for energy and other material resources through the promotion of energy efficiency and sufficiency measures, ensuring that this does not weigh disproportionately on low- and middle-income people.

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Encouraging Member States to adopt green budgeting practices, including roadmaps for phasing out direct and indirect fossil fuel subsidies, which will create significant fiscal space to support the energy poor and low-income people in particular.

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Encouraging the development of strong national strategies aimed at creating an enabling environment for the social economy in Member States, unlocking the unmet financial needs of social economy actors and supporting the shift towards more environmental and socially responsible consumption, including via public procurement.

5.1.

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Encouraging Members States to fully implement the Council recommendation on ensuring a fair transition towards climate neutrality (20).

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Conducting independent research to improve knowledge of the opportunities and challenges of the green transition, and collecting and contributing to the development of EU-wide comparable data on the needs of vulnerable people in areas concerned by green transition policies, such as transport, housing, energy supply, household consumption, waste management, labour market, education, internet access, urban and rural development, etc.

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Undertaking impact assessments to thoroughly measure the likely social, distributional, health and employment impacts of both climate action and inaction.

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Adopting an intersectional and gender-sensitive approach to policy-making and analysis, taking into account the intersecting forms of discrimination that people face on the basis of their ethnicity and race, migrant or refugee status, socioeconomic background, sexual orientation, religion, age, ability, gender, etc., which place them in particularly vulnerable situations in the face of the climate crisis and the green transition.

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Ensuring the meaningful participation of people experiencing poverty and social exclusion, including minority groups, in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of just transition policies and strategies.

5.2.

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Establishing a European Directive for Just Transition of the world of work through anticipation and management of change, with social dialogue and collective bargaining as leading principles.

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Carrying out comprehensive employment mapping at NUTS 3 level that supports just transition strategies and that maps current employment, jobs and skills profiles, potential jobs losses, and employment creation, including new jobs and skills profiles.

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Supporting setting up active labour market policies, including job banks, social aid and Job Guarantee programmes, to promote quality employment, working conditions and re-skilling opportunities.

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Encouraging Member States to facilitate the transition of workers who may be particularly vulnerable to the transition and ensure that workers made redundant as a result of the transition receive unemployment benefits and adequate support for job search and requalification.

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Recognising the role that activities such as care, especially domestic work, the informal economy, the social economy, platform work, undocumented work and the work of people in prison may play as part of a just transition.

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Monitoring and assessing social protection systems with the aim of ensuring their adequacy, especially for vulnerable workers at risk of poverty or living in poverty.

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Strengthening social protection systems through both research on innovative programmes and national measures such as collective bargaining and adequate minimum wages, access to social protection for all, social programmes for the unemployed, and more.

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Exploring possibilities to develop initiatives similar to the European instrument for temporary support to mitigate unemployment risks in an emergency (SURE) mechanism for the most impacted sectors.

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Adapting the labour market to the specific needs of disadvantaged workers by supporting Work Integration Social Enterprises and scaling up initiatives such as the Zero-Unemployment Zones, ensuring that the participation in such programmes is voluntary without negative repercussions.

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Ensuring that national authorities work with non-for-profit and other social service providers to identify and support vulnerable households and individuals accessing temporary measures such as eco-vouchers, direct income support, etc.

5.3.

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Addressing skills shortages for critical sectors and ensuring that learning, up-skilling, reskilling schemes are accessible to all age groups, backgrounds and employment statuses, and that these processes take into account the needs of the labour market, are co-produced with learners and are coordinated with social partners and, where appropriate, civil society and other stakeholders.

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Encouraging large-scale skills partnerships, such as the EU Pact for Skills (22), at the appropriate levels between public authorities, education providers, industry and social partners to engage in mapping and building skills intelligence to support just transition strategies.

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Integrating the skills and education agendas and extending the European Skills Agenda to key competences.

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Encouraging Member States to introduce a skills-based compensation system for companies accessing public funds for upskilling workers, in agreement with social partners, and ensuring that current financing models, such as Individual Learning Accounts and Paid Training Leave schemes, are conducive to trainings for the green transition.

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Updating education curricula (23) and vocational education and training with skills for the green transition (24) and making science, technology, engineering and mathematics, manual labour and apprenticeships more attractive in a gender responsive manner, while ensuring the resilience of education and training systems.

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Recognising the skills and qualification of refugees and migrants.

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Investing in formal, non-formal and informal learning and promoting existing guidelines and strategic frameworks to recognise and validate transversal competences, while supporting educators and learning providers with adequate funding and professional development opportunities.

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Developing and implementing effectively, supported by adequate funding, the existent competence frameworks at EU level — such as the LifeComp (25) and GreenComp (26) frameworks, and the Key Competences for Lifelong Learning; moreover, monitoring these processes through instruments such as the Recovery and Resilience Facility and any follow-up.

5.4.

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Accelerating the deployment of renewable energy, including through better transposition of the EU legislative frameworks on public and stakeholder ownership and energy communities.

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Accelerating the renovation wave, paying particular attention to low-income households and tenants, e.g. through non-repayable grants, competitive interest rates to support the renovation of the housing stock. The risk of renoviction and increasing rents should be addressed adequately.

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Strengthening efficient, multi-modal clean and affordable public transport systems with increased investment in fully integrated infrastructure, rolling stock and personnel and through better subnational, national, and international coordination (27).

6.1.

6.2.

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Strengthening and monitoring the implementation of the fundamental rights of workers to organise and join trade unions without retaliation and to bargain collectively, including in emerging green sectors.

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Encouraging and supporting business actors and private companies to develop and implement, through social dialogue, short and long-term plans for a just transition at company level. This should be done in addition to the development of genuine decarbonisation plans, with the aim of anticipating and managing the change at this level and informing sectoral and national plans, through proper information, consultation and participation of workers, in accordance with the applicable rules and practices, and through the training, re- and upskilling of workers. Long-term employment and skills needs should be taken into account and, where necessary, internal placements, outplacements or other support measures should be organised.

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Encouraging the development of long-term just transition agreements at territorial level to revitalise affected areas with a variety of stakeholders including public administrations, social partners and civil society, with the aim of promoting new industrial ecosystems in an equitable way, taking into account local history, culture, aspirations and opportunities.

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Encouraging Member States to create Just Transition Commissions (32) to allow regional authorities, social partners and civil society organisations to participate, where appropriate, in the development, implementation and monitoring of national and regional just transition plans.

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Facilitating the negotiation of social protection measures in social dialogue, to support workers made redundant as a result of the transition.

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Encouraging social dialogue on issues such as training, and arrangements related to time and financial resources, benefitting workers.

6.3.

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Supporting the implementation of civil dialogue for policy-making, focusing on capacity building and mainstreaming the engagement of organised civil society at all stages of the policy cycle, taking into account the inclusion of and outreach to marginalised and under-represented groups, and implementing follow-up and accountability mechanisms.

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Establishing public participation processes through which local stakeholders such as civil society and local communities, representing citizens in all their diversity, are involved in decision-making, and further fostering the cooperation between civil society and the public sector.

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Encouraging bottom-up civic participation such as, for instance, participatory budgeting, citizens’ assemblies, youth energy councils, etc., representing people in all their diversity and paying attention to the gender and anti-racist approach.

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Strengthening the governance framework of the Just Transition Mechanism to ensure a comprehensive involvement of all stakeholders in the Just Transition Fund, and further developing the European Climate Pact to create meaningful participatory democracy in climate action.

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Considering simplifying the process for submitting European Citizens’ Initiatives to make it more effective.

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Making funding for civil society sustainable, long-term and flexible in terms of rules and procedures at European, national, regional and local levels, and guaranteeing the openness of the civic space to facilitate and encourage the work of civil society.

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Encouraging working with municipalities on local and regional projects through just transition tenders to develop activities such as sustainable tourism, rehabilitation and repurposing of mining and industrial areas and renewable energy projects.

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Providing municipal and regional authorities with best practices on how to participate in just transition processes and equipping them with capacity-building and financial resources to do so.

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Fostering public ownership of the Territorial Just Transition Plans.

7.1.

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Enhancing EU enterprises’ access to a secure and renewable energy and a circular use of raw material supply, while ensuring an equitable distribution of resources, global just transitions and the needs of future generations. Moreover, promoting decarbonisation, circularity and sustainable resource management by businesses in all sectors, not just those sectors or technologies labelled as ‘green’ or ‘clean’.

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Exploring and developing the EU’s carbon leakage policy such as CBAM with the aim of covering all relevant sectors critical to the EU’s open strategic autonomy and essential functions of society, while ensuring that this does not mean protectionism, particularly against developing countries.

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Within the EU, strengthening the single market and its proper functioning in terms of trade in products, technologies and services that contribute to and accelerate the green transition; outside the EU, promoting the export opportunities for EU enterprises to provide sustainable products and solutions to global markets and facilitating their contribution to the EU’s partnership programmes with developing countries.

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Ensuring that a stable, predictable and long-term policy and regulatory framework allows businesses to become strong and resilient. Such a framework should provide a level playing field for EU enterprises within the single market and in relation to their international competitors, thereby enhancing the economic security, resilience and sovereignty of the EU.

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Developing roadmaps for sectors and businesses to decarbonise in line with the Fit for 55 legislation and the future 2040 climate target, and setting out the appropriate industrial policy tools to protect industry and businesses from carbon and investment leakage, subject to companies’ decarbonisation and just transition plans.

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Providing public support towards a considerable upscaling of social economy enterprises and organisations, and community-led initiatives focusing on social goals and just environmental protection.

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Enhancing the availability of appropriate advisory services and cooperation platforms for MSMEs, including cooperatives and social economy enterprises, to help them respond to the challenges of the twin transition, in terms of daily operations, innovation and skills development (33).

8.1.

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Setting up an EU funding strategy for a just transition that builds upon lessons learned from existing EU funds, including the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), and paves the way for proper funding the green transition in a socially just manner, along the lines of the ground-breaking NextGenerationEU. This EU funding strategy must ensure that the EU funds essential to meeting the challenges of a just transition are available after recovery funding ends in 2026 and that the funding is sufficient to achieve the EU’s new 2040 emission target.

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Supporting a revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework, as already proposed by the European Commission to create more flexibility for an EU budget under strain from multiple crises.

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Increasing funding of the Just Transition Mechanism and Fund and extending it to other regions and sectors, with priority given to the most polluting ones identified on the basis of a thorough impact assessment of the EU’s 2040 climate target and sectoral transition and decarbonisation roadmaps.

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Increasing funding under the Social Climate Fund and rebating a more substantial portion of carbon price revenue to households.

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Ensuring that Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funding and other instruments support Just transition objectives.

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Making sure that the updated National Energy and Climate Plans adequately assess the spending gap for a just transition and address ways to close it, map all fossil fuel subsidies (explicit and implicit) and include a time-bound plan to phase them out in a socially just manner, so as to free up public resources for a just transition.

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Ensuring coherence and synergies between different funding mechanisms, e.g. NextGenerationEU/RRF, the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) and cohesion funds, and that EU funds facilitate, monitor and coordinate the green and social investment policy required for a just transition, while promoting convergence between Member States.

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Ensuring that the next generation of cohesion policy funds are guided by the principles of a just transition and based on a detailed analysis of the vulnerabilities of the different areas of Europe vis-à-vis the green transition.

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Prioritising and monitoring the use of EU and national funds to benefit first and foremost those most in need, through targeted measures for people in vulnerable situations.

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Ensuring proper implementation of the ‘polluter pays’ principle in climate and environmental policies.

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Aligning the implementation of State aid and public procurement rules with just transition objectives and ensuring that the conditions for access to public funding in Member States are met and that companies that do not comply with tax obligations and environmental and labour legislation should be excluded from access to public funding (36).

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Ensuring that taxation reduces inequality and guides and encourages businesses and individuals to take measures that contribute to the green transition.

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Due to the importance of technological and social innovation in advancing a just transition, ensuring intensive public and private investment in research and innovation, including effective Research and Development and Innovation (R&D&I) infrastructures and innovation ecosystems that involve grassroots citizens’ initiatives, businesses, trade unions, universities and research organisations, as well as other relevant stakeholders.