EUROPEAN COMMISSION PUBLIC CONSULTATION ON THE EUROPE 2020 STRATEGY Name: Confédération Européenne des Cadres - CEC European Managers Contact details: Address: Rue de la Loi 81a - Brussels Phone number: +324201051 E-mail: info@cec-managers. org Country of residence: Belgium Language of your contribution: English Type of organisation: G Member State G Public authority G Registered organisation G Registered company G Individual citizen G Non-registered organisation/company G Other, please specify: Main area(s) covered by your contribution: G Economic and financial affairs G Competitiveness G Industry G Single market G Employment □ Research, development and innovation □ Digital economy G Climate, energy and resource efficiency □ Education □ Poverty/social exclusion G Other, please specify: Register ID number (if you/your organisation is registered in the Transparency register): 10426402966-04 Your reply: И can be published with your personal information G can be published in an anonymous way G cannot be published A) Background for the public consultation: The Europe 2020 strategy was launched in March 2010 as the EU's strategy for promoting smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. It aims to achieve a knowledge-based, competitive European economy while preserving the EU's social market economy model and improving resource efficiency. It was thus conceived as a partnership between the EU and its Member States driven by the promotion of growth and jobs. The Europe 2020 strategy is built around five headline targets in the areas of employment, research and development, climate and energy1, education and the fight against poverty and social exclusion. The strategy also set out a series of action programmes, called "flagship initiatives", in seven fields considered to be key drivers for growth, namely innovation, the digital economy, employment and youth, industrial policy, poverty and resource efficiency. The objectives of the strategy are also supported by action at EU level in areas such as the single market, the EU budget and the EU external agenda. The Europe 2020 strategy is implemented and monitored in the context of the European Semester, the yearly cycle of coordination of economic and budgetary policies at EU level. The European Semester involves discussion among EU institutions on broad priorities, annual commitments by the Member States and country-specific recommendations prepared 1 In January 2014 the Commission launched a framework for energy and climate policies up to 2030. A reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 40% below the 1990 level, an EU-wide binding target for renewable energy of at least 27% and renewed ambitions for energy efficiency policies are among the main objectives of the new framework. CONFÉDÉRATION EUROPÉENNE DES CADRES CEC, Rue de Ια Loi 81α, Β-1040 Brussels Tel: +32 (0) 2 420 10 51 Fax: +32 (0) 2 420 12 92 [email protected] www.cec-managers.org 2 by the Commission and endorsed at the highest level by leaders in the European Council. These recommendations should then be taken on board in the Member States' policies and budgets. As such, together with the EU budget, the country-specific recommendations are key instruments for the implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy. After four years, the Commission has proposed, and the European Council of 20-21 March 2014 has agreed, to initiate a review of the Europe 2020 strategy. On 5 March 2014, the Commission adopted a Communication "Taking stock of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth" (Communication tSland Annexes drawing preliminary lessons on the first years of implementation of the strategy. Building on these first outcomes and in a context of a gradual recovery of the European economies, it is time to reflect on the design of the strategy for the coming years. IS), Through these questions, we are seeking your views on the lessons learned from the early years of the Europe 2020 strategy and on the elements to be taken into account in its further development, in order to build the post-crisis growth strategy of the EU. Presentation of CEC European Manaaers CEC European Managers is the European confederation representing the interests of managers and high-level professionals. With its 16 National Member organizations and 9 professional Federations, it gives voice to more than 1 million managers across Europe. Through an agreement signed in 1999, it participates in the bipartite cross-industry social dialogue as a member of the ETUC delegation, in cooperation with Eurocadres. The latest Eurofound study on the representativeness of European social partners, published in 2013, recognizes "the clear role in cross-industry bargaining and consultations 2" CEC European Managers plays, stating that it "maintains representation of professional and managerial staff in a number of EU Member States and this confirms its relevance at EU-level3" As a general remark, the positions we will be adopting in this document are of a political nature: since the whole strategy in itself is essentially a political document, we consider that this position paper is not the best tool to produce a more technical analysis of those issues that would be of specific interest for the managers we represent, nor do we intend to produce suggestions for policy initiatives to be adopted. We are sure that we will be able to contribute with our expertise, giving precise and concrete indications, in the communications and consultations that will follow this preliminary open consultation and the resulting mid-term review of the Strategy that the European Commission will publish in the coming months. 2 "Representativeness of the social partners in the European cross-industry social dialogue", Eurofound, 2013, page 25 Ibidem, page 24 3 CONFÉDÉRATION EUROPÉENNE DES CADRES CEC, Rue de Ια Loi 81α, Β-1040 Brussels Tel: +32 (0) 2 420 10 51 Fax: +32 (O) 2 420 12 92 [email protected] www.cec-managers.org 3 Background information: The five official targets for the EU in 2020 as defined in 2010 1. Employment: 75% of the 20-64 year-olds to be employed 2. R&D: 3% of the EU's GDP to be invested in R&D 3. Climate change and energy sustainability • • • greenhouse gas emissions 20% (or even 30%, if the conditions are right) lower than 1990 20% of energy from renewable 20% increase in energy efficiency 4. Education • Reducing the rates of early school leaving below 10% • at least 40% of 30-34-year-olds completing third level education 5. Fighting poverty and social exclusion • at least 20 million fewer people in or at risk of poverty and social exclusion B) Questions 1) Taking stock: the Europe 2020 strategy over 2010-2014 Content and implementation • For you, what does the Europe 2020 strategy mean? What are the main elements that you associate with this strategy? The Europe 2020 strategy has been an ambitious programme providing a political definition of the economic and social priorities for the next decade. The necessity to launch a new strategic programme that would set the objectives Europe should try to accomplish came as a response to the insufficient level of achievement of the Lisbon Strategy. The latter had been launched in 2000 with the objective of transforming Europe in the "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion". From a general point of view, we consider that the five targets that accompany the strategy are known and recognized by the European citizens, and have become (as the definition says) the symbol of the strategy, and in this respect do represent the most significant element of the strategy. From our specific point of view as European social partners, we believe that the organizational and procedural novelties introduced by the mechanism of the European semester as the concrete tool to ensure the implementation of the strategy are the aspect of the strategy that most affected our activity. In this respect, we would like to reaffirm the conclusions of the joint declaration on the social partner involvement in European Economic Governance: our consultation in CONFÉDÉRATION EUROPÉENNE DES CADRES CEC, Rue de Ια Loi 81α, Β-1040 Brussels Tel: +32 (0) 2 420 10 51 Fox: +32 (O) 2 420 12 92 [email protected] www.cec-managers.org 4 the initial phases of the Semester (preliminary discussions ahead of the Annual Growth Survey - AGS) is a very positive move that goes in the right direction of increasing the involvement and capacity to influence of social partners. • Overall, do you think that the Europe 2020 strategy has made a difference? Please explain. The EU 2020 strategy has set the policy horizon of the European Union for a decade. Establishing specific and measurable targets gives a clear idea of the priorities and the long-term objectives of policy making; this is precisely what citizens should expect from politics: offering a long-run prospect and a precise vision for the future. The strategy has definitely made a difference, first for the way the activity of the European institutions has been organized, as it has contributed to increasing the coordination and alignment of the EU policy actions. Also the "domestic" debate of EU Member States has been influenced by the content and goals set by the Europe 2020 strategy, offering to all European citizens a common benchmark and a new horizon against which to evaluate the consistency of policies adopted by their respective national governments. • Has the knowledge of what EU countries are doing in Europe 2020 areas impacted on the approach followed in your country? Please give examples. CEC European Managers is a pan-European organization, representing managers in 15 different European countries. For this reason, it is difficult for us to express our position on the effects that the comparison with other Member States can have on the approach followed by individual countries. But it is undoubted that the common participation of all Member States to the policy-making processes (and the resulting procedural aspects) of the implementation of the strategy offers countless opportunities for comparison, mutual learning and adoption/diffusion of best practices. • Has there been sufficient involvement of stakeholders in the Europe 2020 strategy? Are you involved in the Europe 2020 strategy? Would you like to be more involved? If yes, how? CEC European Managers is involved, together with the other EU social partners, in the preliminary phases of the European semester, when it is invited to share its opinions on the preparatory document to the AGS, before the latter is published by the European Commission in November. As we said in a previous point, we have welcomed this opportunity to participate at an early stage of the process, at a moment when our visions and opinions can still be of some value for the services of the Commission. A further involvement of Social partners, on the same footing, would be possible and welcome, all along the process of the European Semester: social partners should be consulted not only when priorities for future actions are discussed, but also when specific indications for budgetary, macroeconomic and fiscal measures are addressed to the governments at the end of the European semester process. It is at that point that an evaluation of the social consequences of the measures suggested would be more useful. We are aware of the risk that the implementation of this might result in an excessive workload for all the subjects participating to the process, but we believe that by strengthening the participation of social partners to the European semester, its level of legitimacy would increase. CONFEDERATION EUROPEENNE DES CADRES CEC, Rue de Ια Loi 81α, B-1040 Brussels Tel: +32 (0) 2 420 10 51 Fox: +32 (O) 2 420 12 92 [email protected] www.cec-managers.org Tools • Do the current targets for 2020 respond to the strategy's objectives of fostering growth and jobs? The selected targets have all a clear connection with the issues at stake, with the first one (employment rate at 75% for the people aged 20-64) being precisely the basic indicator for evaluating the performance of any policy aiming at creating more jobs. And we also believe that targets need to be restricted, specific and easily measurable in order to be perceived as credible indicators. Yet, whereas the targets chosen for the strategy are mainly of a quantitative nature, more qualitative references would be desirable. For example, when evaluating the fulfilment level of the employment target, for instance, it would be essential to factor the quality of the jobs created (measured in terms of their stability, the proportion of low-skill or labour-intensive jobs, their gender "characterization" and so on). Furthermore, we believe that the five targets do not sufficiently express the "social dimension" of what we think the action of the Union in the next decade should be. We will comment more extensively on this issue in part 2 of the questionnaire. • Among current targets, do you consider that some are more important than others? Please explain. From a general point of view, all the five targets should be considered as equally important; together they express a balanced "policy mix" (provided, of course, that the actual policies adopted in correspondence to these targets prove effective). We particularly appreciate the relevance given to research, development and innovation: when the Strategy was launched in 2010 and CEC European Managers responded to the consultation organized by the European Commission, we had underlined the importance of "innovativeness", and the necessity to adopt policies that make it easier for innovations to be put in practice. Unfortunately, the Communication "Tacking stock of the Europe 2020 strategy" accompanying this consultation confirms that the target of achieving investments in R&D equivalent to at least 3% of the EU GDP "is unlikely" to be met, while the other two research and technological development-related targets (reduction of greenhouse emissions coupled with increasing energy efficiency and increasing education levels) should be achievable (even though, as the Communication acknowledges, the "economic slowdown has also had a significant effect on emissions' reduction"). We regret to notice that this target will not be met, as we believe that investing in R&D is a key to ensure sustainable growth in the 21st century. This regret applies of course also to all the other "missing" targets, and especially when it comes to the "most social" of them, the number of people at risk of poverty. Figures for this target have even worsened over the last years, with the latest data available (2012) setting the level at 124 million individuals. We would not like to see that the Europe 2020 strategy, launched as a reaction to the failure of the previous Lisbon strategy, would eventually prove as unsuccessful as its predecessor. • Do you find it useful that EU-level targets are broken down into national targets? If so what is in your view the best way to set national targets? So far, have the national targets been set appropriately/not ambitiously enough? Once again, given the specific nature of our Organization, there would be a problem for us to define a specific position concerning the way national Members are affected by the CONFEDERATION EUROPEENNE DES CADRES CEC, Rue de Ια Loi 81α, B-1040 Brussels Tel: +32 (0) 2 420 10 51 Fox: +32 (O) 2 420 12 92 [email protected] www.cec-managers.org strategy and should implement the mechanisms set by it. Yet, from a general point of view, we consider that taking into account the structural differences among Member States and setting different targets for the individual countries is an effective and realistic way to deal with this issue. To increase the credibility of their objectives, policy-makers need to set achievable targets, calibrated on the reality of the economic and social situation of the country they will be impacting; this is even more the case if we look at the deep differences among European countries (and even regions) and realize that setting unique and standardized objectives for all would realistically mean condemning the strategy as a whole to failure. To further strengthen the credibility and realism of engagements made by national governments, it should be possible for Member states reconsider the feasibility of the national targets set in 2011. • What has been the added value of the seven action programmes for growth? Do you have concrete examples of the impact of such programmes? The flagship initiatives have had a positive effect, as they have helped focus the attention on the targets and the collective awareness of the strategy as a whole. Furthermore, these initiatives have had the merit to show the horizontal nature of the priorities and the consequent need to adopt "horizontal" measures involving different policy areas. We therefore believe that the flagship initiatives should be maintained as an element of the Strategy even after its mid-term review; in this respect we share the conclusion of the European Commission that they have "contributed to mutual learning and thematic knowledge at EU level". Yet, we believe it would be necessary to focus on their incisiveness and their actual capacity to have an impact on National policies and the possibility to achieve the targets. We have already commented on the risk that the targets set in the strategy will not be met, and we wonder what the real impact of these initiatives might have been. It is fundamental to ensure more consistency, linking them more effectively to the financing schemes already available and ensuring political support at all levels. 2) Adapting the Europe 2020 strategy: the growth strategy for a post-crisis Europe Content and implementation • Does the EU need a comprehensive and overarching medium-term strategy for growth and jobs for the coming years? Our economies and societies have been particularly hit by the financial crisis, started in 2008. As we said before, we believe that the Europe 2020 strategy (irrespective of the actual levels of fulfilment of its targets) has played a positive role identifying some priorities for the whole continent, introducing a framework (both at the policy-making and institutional/organizational levels) to support the coordination of Member States' activities. We are in favour of putting in place a new strategy for the years to come, setting new common goals and defining policy suggestions to achieve those goals. Europe will need this strategy even more when the current crisis will start to disappear, and the first signals of a widespread, sustainable and durable recovery will come to sight. We will then need to redefine our priorities and tackle the new problems that the crisis will have exposed, adopting a comprehensive approach as a way to fight the growing CONFÉDÉRATION EUROPÉENNE DES CADRES CEC, Rue de Ια Loi 81α, Β-1040 Brussels Tel: +32 (0) 2 420 10 51 Fox: +32 (0) 2 420 12 92 [email protected] www.cec-managers.org 7 divergence of European regions and further sustain the full development of the internal market. • What are the most important and relevant areas to be addressed in order to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth? The first and most pressing necessity is to relaunch the capacity of the European economy to produce high-quality jobs. Europe needs to restart its productive machine, adopting measures supporting reindustrialization and fighting the process of "productive desertification" that Europe risks initiating. The need to invest more on supporting the productive capacity of Europe must not be achieved at the expense of competitiveness: in the new global context of growing competition, we cannot afford investing resources on sectors and productions for which our industries can no longer offer a competitive edge. Becoming more competitive requires a profound intervention on the many factors influencing the overall capacity of an economic system to perform effectively. Among these factors are the efficiency of the public sector and administration and also the availability and cost of energy sources. Another crucial factor is the capacity of the education systems to respond to and anticipate the skills requirements set by the technological developments. All these aforementioned points are just some of the priorities that will have to be addressed to restore the capacity of the European economy to compete with the others. But we believe that increasing competitiveness must not be done considering the relative cost of our social protection systems as a hindering factor that could and should be reduced. We need to preserve our social model, one of the distinctive traits of both our respective national systems and of the European Union, by ensuring that also future generations of workers (and citizens) can enjoy the same level of job protection and social inclusion as us. Finally, in this respect CEC European Managers would like to remind the importance of a solid and functioning system of social dialogue as one of the foundations of the European social model as well as an effective contribution to accelerating recovery paths. It is often acknowledged by the European Commission that countries with a modern system of industrial relations, where social partners are fully and timely involved in the policymaking processes have shown better results in terms of fighting the crisis. We believe that this must be a fundamental feature of all future European policies aiming at producing more, more sustainable and better distributed wealth. • What new challenges should be taken into account in the future? The events of the last months have brought our attention back to the "external" dimension of Europe: over the last years we have all been absorbed in a mainly domestic debate, focussing on our internal problems and solutions to them based on the way we coordinate our work. We can only ensure growth and economic stability if the global context offers the conditions to do so: this has of course a lot to do with those external- related aspects of macro-economic policies (participation to the international economic and financial organizations, international trade, energy supply, etc..) that are already part of the "wider" application of the strategy, but we should probably also consider the opportunity to take into account also other elements pertaining to our common external policies. CONFEDERATION EUROPEENNE DES CADRES CEC, Rue de Ια Loi 81α, B-1040 Brussels Tel: +32 (0) 2 420 10 51 Fox: +32 (O) 2 420 12 92 [email protected] www.cec-managers.org Another issue of particular concern for CEC European Managers which will definitely pose major challenges to the future economic and social prospect of Europe is the ongoing change of our demographic structure. Age mainstreaming should become a rule for all policy initiatives, together with gender mainstreaming and social mainstreaming. Within the framework of a European project, CEC European Managers has recently completed a study on the effects of demographic change on the future availability of managers and professional staffs in the European economy. The results showed pretty clearly that action (in terms of raising the retirement age and increasing the presence of women in managerial positions) is needed if we want to ensure the sustainability of our welfare systems and the capacity of our economies to remain competitive and keep producing wealth and jobs. This reflection should be seen in the wider context of the necessity to make fully use of the unexploited potentials of our economies and societies: we need to mobilize all the capacities and skills that we have, working to retrieve all the resources of those European citizens who cannot contribute to the society according to their competences because of structural inefficiencies. For instance, Europe can count on an impressive pool of under occupied women (the 2013 EU activity rate for men aged 25 to 49 was of 92% for men and only of 79,7% for women) which needs to be put in the condition to participate to the workforce on the same footing as men. This is probably the biggest, new challenge that we need to face: investing on our human capital to enlarge the area of those who contribute to the society, reducing social exclusions and putting everyone's skills to use. • How could the strategy best be linked to other EU policies? By ensuring that policy proposals put forward at European level are submitted to a prior "compliance" test with the targets and the overall structure of the strategy. • What would improve stakeholder involvement in a post-crisis growth strategy for Europe? What could be done to increase awareness, support and better implementation of this strategy in your country? As already explained above, we believe that social partners (and other stakeholders, in respect to their specific area of interest) should be associated more significantly to the procedural aspects of the Strategy, namely during the European Semester. We share the conclusion of the European Commission set in the Communication "Taking Stock" that "multiplication of procedures, documents and legal steps at EU level risks overloading the process and damaging its clarity", but new and more efficient ways to allow for stakeholders to timely participate in the various phases of the process should be found in order to improve the correspondence of the targets and the deriving policies with the needs of the various European countries. Tools • What type of instruments do you think it would be more appropriate to use to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth? CEC European Managers welcomes and supports the recent engagement of the new President of the European Commission, Mr. Juncker, proposing a plan of public and private investments of 300 billion € for the next three years. The main challenge being CONFÉDÉRATION EUROPÉENNE DES CADRES CEC, Rue de Ια Loi 81α, B-1040 Brussels Tel: +32 (0) 2 420 10 51 Fox: +32 (0) 2 420 12 92 [email protected] www.cec-managers.org 9 creating quality jobs, we believe that such an investment plan would be the right measure to bring the necessary stimulus to the European economy as longer-run corrective measures are implemented by the States. While continuing to drive Member States to completing those reforms that are necessary to modernize their economies, alternative ways to mobilize rapidly significant amounts of resources in the "real" economy should be put in place, for instance through the launch of a massive infrastructural plan which would at the same time have a positive impact on the further strengthening of what we consider to be the biggest underused asset of the Union: its internal market. Another possible area for intervention and change in the current set of tools available might cover the procedural aspects concerning the European Semester. First of all, a clear, precise and regular process of monitoring of the achievement of EU 2020 strategy targets must be put in place, and should be given more "public" evidence. The whole system of economic governance should be redesigned to allow for a more timely and effective participation of stakeholders and representatives of the civil society. As anticipated above, the Social Partners have already expressed their views on their increased participation to the European economic governance mechanisms: this could and should be done without recurring to additional mechanisms or institutional procedures, but focusing on the different fora for participation and exchange that already exist at European level. • What would best be done at EU level to ensure that the strategy delivers results? What would best be done at Member State level? The fundamental aspect to consider when discussing the interactions between EU and national authorities in the context of ensuring the capacity to deliver is the importance of respecting the provisions set by the Treaties concerning the areas of competences of the Union. Considering that a revision of the Treaties (towards a further widening of the competences of the Union in the areas of economic and social policies) is for the moment unlikely, coordination of national initiatives is the only possible way to follow. For this reason, we support the idea that the EU continues to define the broad framework, setting priorities and suggesting possible areas of interventions and measures to adopt this is the main responsibility we think that the EU should bear: setting a new direction to follow. Member States should be left to adjust policy indications suggested to their domestic conditions and national priorities. The necessity to leave a rather ample room of manoeuvre for national authorities should also be seen as a way to fill one of the gaps of the architecture of the Strategy: its insufficient attention to the local dimension of policy implementation, with little participation of regional authorities. • How can the strategy encourage Member States to put a stronger policy focus on growth? All European countries are now concentrated on the need to restore growth and create more and better jobs; the dilemma they face is that this priority doesn't always match with the (equally crucial) necessity to correct the macro-economic and financial imbalances and ensure the sustainability of their public finances. The strategy should therefore pave the way for a new European approach to economic governance, aiming at reconciling these two fundamental objectives. In this perspective, incentive mechanisms could be put in place for those countries achieving (or at least demonstrating to go in the CONFÉDÉRATION EUROPÉENNE DES CADRES CEC, Rue de Ια Loi 81α, B-1040 Brussels Tel: +32 (0) 2 420 10 51 Fox: +32 (O) 2 420 12 92 [email protected] www.cec-managers.org 10 direction of) the objectives set for them by the European Commission during the European Semester. • Are targets useful? Please explain. Targets are useful in the sense that they offer a clear and easily understandable way to "visualize" the progression towards the achievement of the goals, and in this sense they should be kept. In our opinion, targets represent an effective tool that goes in the direction of increasing the "political accountability" of policy makers at European level, thus contributing to the progressive definition and strengthening of a European political responsibility linked with the idea of a precise and increasingly autonomous European political space. Furthermore, referring to targets makes comparisons among Member States and at international level easier. • Would you recommend adding or removing certain targets or the targets in general? Please explain. The reference to the targets has become a reality in the domestic political debate of Member States, and a way to make it easier also for citizens to have a clearer perception of the issues being discussed. Targets represent also the focus for all other "internal" EU- policies, the overarching evaluation meter against which the efficacy of policy initiatives is measured; any modification would then imply the need to add new benchmarks to these related policies, which would risk further complicating the background and reducing the effect of increased consistency brought by the instrument of the targets. For this reason, we believe that it would be necessary not to modify the current structure, without adding or removing any of them. A fine-tuning of their elements though would be possible, and beneficial: adding a qualitative dimension to them, as the Communication "Taking stock" acknowledges, would improve the readability of their meaning and take a better picture of the real condition (advancement and likelihood to achieve the target) of each Member State. We also welcome the possibility that one of the outcomes of the mid-term review will consist in the possibility to update the targets (rates and percentages) as a function of the new situations in which Member States find themselves. Finally, • What are the most fruitful areas for joint EU-Member State action? What would be the added value? The EU should focus on its function of collector of best practices among Member States, supporting the exchange of information. The various steps of the European Semester, and in particular the final ones when the European Commission produces the Country Specific Recommendations for each State, should be accompanied by a reference to success stories and examples of effective measures adopted by other Member States experiencing similar structural conditions. CONFÉDÉRATION EUROPÉENNE DES CADRES CEC, Rue de Ια Loi 81α, B-1040 Brussels Tel: +32 (0) 2 420 10 51 Fox: +32 (0) 2 420 12 92 [email protected] www.cec-managers.org 11
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