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Document 52020XR0140

Resolution of the European Committee of the Regions — The 2020 Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy

OJ C 141, 29.4.2020, p. 1–4 (BG, ES, CS, DA, DE, ET, EL, EN, FR, GA, HR, IT, LV, LT, HU, MT, NL, PL, PT, RO, SK, SL, FI, SV)

29.4.2020   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 141/1

Resolution of the European Committee of the Regions — The 2020 Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy

(2020/C 141/01)

THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS (CoR),

—

having regard to the European Commission’s Communication on the 2020 Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy (ASGS) (1),

—

having regard to its resolution of 9 October 2019 on the 2019 European Semester and in view of the 2020 Annual Growth Survey (2),

The European Semester integrating the Sustainable Development Goals

1.

 welcomes the 2020 ASGS as the starting point for the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into the European Semester, which provides the latter with the necessary longer-term horizon and a broader focus beyond purely economic concerns;

2.

 considers that using the ASGS as a policy coordination tool to implement the European Green Deal will require a deep change in the governance and the mindset accompanying the European Semester process as a whole and a refocus on the ownership of the Semester on the ground;

3.

 stresses that achieving the SDGs implies addressing in a holistic way all dimensions of sustainable development (competitiveness, inclusiveness, environment, good governance) which are larger than the Green Deal; pursuing the SDGs will require policy coherence in dealing with trade-offs and distributional challenges. This also includes enhancing cultural and social dimensions of knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and innovation. The European Semester should allow all levels of government and relevant stakeholders, working in partnership, to identify and address these trade-offs, avoiding silo-thinking and ensuring coherence, while mainstreaming the SDGs across policy fields;

4.

 welcomes the announcement that the Country Reports and National Reform Programmes will have specific sections monitoring the SDGs and assessing related policies, and that the Country-Specific Recommendations will deal with countries’ specific contributions to the SDGs; notes that the integration of the SDGs into the European Semester needs to take into account territorial different starting points and requires an appropriate statistical base to monitor the SDGs at regional level;

5.

 asks for a clear timeframe and clear time-bound and measurable targets to pursue the SDGs, in respect of the actions foreseen both in the Green Deal and the ASGS; stresses that such targets and timelines should be set through a mixed top-down and bottom-up process in which all levels of government and relevant stakeholders should work in partnership;

6.

 shares the overall orientation of the recommendations to the euro-area Member States, but notes that they give only modest support to the greening and inclusion ambitions of the SDGs and the Green Deal, and that they do not give sufficient emphasis to the policy challenges arising from actual territorial differences of starting points;

7.

 notes that the Sustainable Europe Investment Plan is intended to mobilise EUR 1 trillion of sustainable investment over the coming decade; regrets however that the Plan is largely a collection of pre-existing or pre-planned measures, initiatives and financing tools, now brought under a common heading; is therefore concerned that this Plan may not be able to mobilise the financial resources and the coordination necessary to ensure effective implementation of the SDGs in Europe by 2030; in this regard, calls for further assessment of the real costs associated with the transition towards sustainable development and for a more detailed plan on financing them; special attention should be emphasised on encouraging collaborative public-private innovation initiatives driven by cities and regions;

8.

 stresses the need to review the Stability and Growth Pact, in order to allow for a differentiated accountancy of the financial resources needed to fund public investment by all levels of government to implement the Green Deal;

9.

 agrees that structural reforms in Member States in the strategic policy areas relevant to the implementation of the Treaty objectives and EU policies are key for the EU’s convergence and competitiveness, including the deepening of the single market. The European Semester provides a useful framework to foster these reforms, provided that the scope of the structural reforms eligible for EU funding is defined according to the subsidiarity principle and provided that local and regional authorities are involved in it as full partners;

The territorial dimension of the European Semester

10.

 welcomes the focus put on the increasing regional disparities and related challenges to growth and cohesion across and within Member States; underlines that differences in starting points affect heavily the way in which Member States and their regions design and implement their sustainability policies; stresses that territorial differences should be addressed by place-based policies, supported by territorial impact assessments;

11.

 highlights the increased relevance of the Country Reports, in particular their Annex D, which will give guidance for investment policies at regional and local level, including those funded under Cohesion Policy and the Just Transition Fund; underlines that, according to the results of a CoR survey of the national associations representing cities and regions before their national governments, local and regional authorities were not sufficiently involved by their national governments in preparing and discussing Annex D at the political level, and that quite often Annex D does not give an accurate picture of their investment needs;

12.

 stresses that strong consistency and coordination between the European Semester and cohesion policy is needed to deliver on the sustainability and social inclusion objectives of the Green Deal; the costs of the transition towards sustainable development shall not be borne by the most vulnerable; therefore the Just Transition Mechanism has to provide tailored support to the people and the regions most affected, in particular those with a high reliance on fossil fuels — as is the case with regions with isolated energy systems — and energy-intensive industries and those grappling with the social and economic consequences of the shift in energy model after meeting their decarbonisation commitments; furthermore, welcomes the CPR-based governance of the Just Transition Fund and calls for clear and objective allocation criteria;

The social dimension of the European Semester

13.

 supports the integration of the SDGs into the planning for the sustainable economic strategy, especially since the targets match in large part the implementation of the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights; welcomes, therefore, the recent communication on ‘A strong social Europe for just transitions’ (3) and calls for a swift presentation of the action plan to implement the European Pillar of Social Rights;

14.

 calls on the Commission to propose further action to reduce the gender employment gap and gender pay gap;

15.

 welcomes the inclusion of a regional dimension in the latest Joint Employment Report, which echoes the CoR’s ‘European Regional Social Scoreboard’ of September 2019;

16.

 shares the Commission’s concerns about the negative effects of an ageing population and other demographic challenges such as low-density and dispersed populations, declining numbers of young people and the falling birth rate, and invites it to take into account the suggestions included in the CoR opinion on Demographic change: proposals on measuring and tackling its negative effects on EU regions and on The EU response to the demographic challenge;

The governance of the European Semester

17.

 notes that the EU’s growth model can successfully contribute to the global objectives enshrined in the SDGs and the Green Deal only if proper coordination with local and regional authorities is ensured. Reiterates the need to increase ownership of the European Semester on the ground to make it more effective in respect of the EU’s new and ambitious goal of pursuing the SDGs, not least because according to the OECD, 65 % of the 169 targets of the SDGs cannot be achieved without full engagement and coordination with local and regional authorities. For the Semester to deliver on its promises, all levels of government and relevant stakeholders should be involved as partners, beyond the current practices mostly based on consultations at the final stages of the Semester process. This partnership approach should be urgently adopted and localise the implementation of SDGs into place-based objectives and targets and related timeframes; this requires more emphasis on operational SDG commitments and voluntary local reviews of SDG implementation processes;

18.

 underlines that the European Semester now gives guidance on the programming of investments to be co-funded by the ESI Funds, and on the proposed Budgetary Instrument for Convergence and Competitiveness. Warns, however, against the risk of the European Semester’s centralised top-down approach putting undue constraints on the EU Cohesion Policy’s decentralised bottom-up approach and place-based policies; also calls for consistency between the Cohesion Policy’s multiannual programming approach and the European Semester;

19.

 urges the EU to effectively coordinate the governance processes of the European Semester and the EU cohesion policy based on the same principles of partnership and multi-level governance; recalls its opinion on the links between cohesion policy and the European Semester; reiterates its proposal of a Code of Conduct (4) to involve the local and regional authorities in the European Semester as full partners, similar to the Code of Conduct on partnership in the 2014–2020 CPR; stresses the need to promote the use of EU-funded policies for capacity-building of local and regional authorities and recalls its recent opinion on this topic (5); regrets that the Annual Monitoring Report on the implementation of the 2018 Structural Reform Support Programme does not provide data on the use of the programme by local and regional authorities;

20.

 adds that the SDGs themselves require active engagement of stakeholders, including local and regional authorities. Therefore, following the end of the mandate of the EU stakeholders’ platform on SDGs, new forms of stakeholder engagement in the implementation of the SDGs, not least through the European Semester, that are not less ambitious should be defined;

21.

 instructs the President to forward this resolution to the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Croatian presidency of the Council and the President of the European Council.

Brussels, 12 February 2020.

The President of the European Committee of the Regions

Apostolos TZITZIKOSTAS

(1)  https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/2020-european-semester-annual-sustainable-growth-strategy_en

(2)  https://webapi2016.cor.europa.eu/v1/documents/cor-2019-03856-00-00-res-tra-en.docx/content

(3)  COM(2020) 14 final.

(4)  CoR opinion on Improving the governance of the European Semester: a Code of Conduct for the involvement of local and regional authorities. Rapporteur: Rob Jonkman (NL/ECR). Adopted on 11 May 2017 (OJ C 306, 15.9.2017, p. 24).

(5)  CoR opinion on Improving administrative capacity of local and regional authorities to strengthen investments and structural reforms in 2021-2027. Rapporteur: Manuela Bora (IT/PES). Adopted on 4 December 2019 (OJ C 79, 10.3.2020, p. 25).

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