Sustainability advocates, unions pin hopes on reform of EU public procurement rules. The European Commision’s recently announced plans to revise EU public procurement rules should ensure social and environmental criteria that are actually entrenched into law, trade unions and sustainability advocates told Euractiv. On Tuesday (1 October), around 1,000 workers from cleaning, security and catering sectors protested in Brussels to call for an inclusion of social conditionality – such as on collective bargaining – into the new EU rules. So far, the Commission announced to revise the rules only to simplify them, ensure the security of supply for vital technologies, give preference to EU products, and create so-called ‘lead markets’ for sustainable products such as green steel – but made no mention of social criteria. Read more.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned in Berlin on Wednesday (2 October) that EU economic thinking must change urgently, or the Union risks being “out in three, four years” against US and Chinese competition. The EU’s approach to economic growth and international trade is no longer fit for purpose, Macron said in a fireside conversation at the Berlin Global Dialogue, adding the EU risks becoming an irrelevant player in international markets and a mere “adjustment zone for over-capacities” in both China and the US. “If we continue with our [old] growth model, we’re out in three, four years,” the French head of state said. Read more.
France will take unprecedented action to lower its public deficit for 2025, with the new Barnier government’s advisors announcing plans on Wednesday (2 October) to save €40 billion and potentially earn an additional €20 billion in revenues. Prime Minister Michel Barner presented his government’s plans in a general policy speech before French MPs on Tuesday, and a day later, officials outlined the new €60 billion budget measure. Barnier said the aim was to “bring the deficit down to 5% of GDP in 2025” from around 6% in 2024 and then “return below the 3% cap in 2029, in line with European commitments,” referring to the ‘excessive deficit procedure’ the European Commission had threatened to trigger on the country’s finances in July. Read more.
At a debate on Tuesday (1 October), former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta said his vision of a pan-European high-speed rail network will only be realised if Europe delivers on its dream of a single market for investment and savings. “We support railways, but if we cannot say something clear on how to finance it, it will remain [only] a very good expression of goodwill,” Letta said at Tuesday’s debate, organised by the railway industry body CER and the Jacques Delors Institute. On rail, his report advocates for creating a pan-European high-speed rail network and enhanced connectivity between rail systems across Europe. At the event, Letta spoke of a new “momentum” behind European rail expansion and argued that this was, in part, a result of his report. Read more.
Michel Barnier set out a series of policy priorities spanning spending cuts, immigration, health and more in a wide-ranging speech on Tuesday (1 October), with nudges and nods to Brussels that France was back under control. Barnier’s ‘discours de politique générale’ – a speech Prime ministers read out to Parliament when a new government is in place, laying policy priorities during their tenure – was more anticipated than ever, as the country navigates a looming budget crisis and the parliamentary arithmetic means the far-right holds the key to Barnier’s government’s survival. Read more.
Berlin’s clean industry wish-list: Kick nuclear out of EU financing. Laying out key priorities for the EU’s upcoming Clean Industrial Deal, German Economy State Secretary Sven Giegold said on Monday (30 September) he wants the Commission to prioritise renewable energy, taking a tough line on nuclear power and France’s renewable targets. “It is important to exclude nuclear energy and its production from all EU funding,” the German politician, who is reported to run for a leadership position in the German Green party, said. Read more.
Germany’s Buschmann wants to re-open EU sustainability reporting rules negotiations. Germany’s Justice Minister Marco Buschmann wants to reopen negotiations on the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) according to comments on Friday (27 September), one day after Germany and 16 other EU countries received a yellow card from the Commission for missing deadlines to transpose the rules. New EU rules like the CSRD would undermine German efforts to reduce bueocracy for companies, Buschmann said, comparing himself to the “Sisyphus, rolling up the stone”. “Once I am at the top, [EU Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen smiles at me and rolls the stone back down again,” he said. His initiative is, however, seen as a “campaign move” rather than a joint government initative. Read more.
The United States’ ownership of European citizens’ banking data and its dominance of global payment systems means that the European Union is increasingly becoming a “financial colony” of the US, according to former Italian prime minister Enrico Letta. The Italian technocrat, whose recent report on the single market is expected to heavily influence the EU policies in the next mandate, also warned that member states’ refusal to relinquish control over their domestic banking sectors risks exacerbating Europe’s financial subservience vis-à-vis the US. “I think we are becoming more and more a colony in financial terms,” Letta told an event hosted by Bruegel, a Brussels-based EU policy think-tank, on Wednesday (2 October). “What for me is strange is that in all the different [EU] countries, there’s a race to raise our national flag. [But this is akin to] raising our own flag as colonies.” Read more.
The regular issuance of common EU debt along the lines of the bloc’s €806.9 billion pandemic recovery fund is not “essential” for Europe to remain competitive with China and the US, says Mario Draghi. In comments that appeared aimed at easing the concerns of fiscally hawkish member states, the Italian technocrat on Monday (30 September) expressed dismay that much of the discussion surrounding his recent report on the EU economy has centred on his proposal for a successor to the so-called NextGenerationEU (NextGenEU) programme. “This [call for a successor to NextGenEU] was the very first thing people reacted to in the whole report,” Draghi said at another event hosted by Bruegel. “I have to say, as much as I love this concept, it is not the main thing in the report… There are many good reasons for having it, [but] it is not an essential ingredient.” Read more.
Source link : https://www.euractiv.com/section/economy-jobs/news/germanys-scholz-last-minute-orders-on-ev-tariffs-vote-reflect-new-and-old-rifts-in-eu-trade-saga/
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Publish date : 2024-10-04 15:22:28
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