European Economic and Social Committee

Europe 2020 Steering Committee

EESC-2015-05864-00-01-TCD-TRA (EN) 1/8

Brussels, 19 November 2015

C.4_PAS/2020 JS/JA

Draft work programme of the Bureau's ad-hoc group

"Europe 2020 Steering Committee"

for 2015-2018

1.Mission Statement

The EESC Bureau established the Europe 2020 Steering Committee (2020 SC) in July 2010 to enable the various political bodies of the EESC to interact more effectively with one other and to work together with national stakeholders. The purpose is to identify problems and promote particular initiatives and best practices for the on-going adjustment process in the Member States in order to achieve the goals of the Europe 2020 Strategy.

The 2020 SC has a horizontal mandate to incorporate the concept of Europe 2020 and the relevant EU work programme into the daily activities of the EESC Sections, CCMI and Observatories and to encourage national ESCs and similar organisations to take an active part in developing the national programmes relating to Europe 2020, particularly the National Reform Programmes (NRP).

Furthermore, the EESC Bureau has mandated the 2020 SC to hold joint meetings with national ESCs and similar organisations, to prepare joint initiatives and reports relating to Europe 2020 and to work together with the Communication Group to draft a Europe 2020 communication strategy for organised civil society.

This mandate is carried out in close cooperation with the European Commission. The European Council, the Council and the European Parliament will also be kept informed.

At its meeting of 7 October 2015, the EESC Bureau decided to renew the mandate of the Europe 2020 Steering Committee for the 2015-2020 period.

2.The Commission mandate

Protocol on cooperation between the EC and the EESC:

(point 16) The Commission and the Committee will continue to increase the synergies between their actions and initiatives in policy areas that concern organised civil society the most in particular the Europe 2020 strategy, including sustainable development and climate change, the deepening of the internal market, the fight against poverty and social exclusion, immigration, and energy supply.

Each year, the Committee presents a report assessing, with the close cooperation of the network of national Economic and Social Councils and Similar Institutions, civil society involvement in the elaboration of NRPs. That report is debated in the plenary session before the Spring European Council.

The Committee will invite the responsible member of the Commission to participate in the debate and to present the Annual Growth Survey"

(point 17) The Commission and the Committee endeavour to foster ownership of Union policies by citizens. To that end, the Commission welcomes the Committee intention to pursue its efforts to involve the network of national Economic and Social Councils and Similar Institutions.

(point 18)The Committee contributes to the process of evaluating the implementation of Union legislation, in particular in relation to the horizontal clauses, as provided for under Articles 8 to 12 TFEU.

(point 23) The Commission and the Committee will work together on media coverage of their joint events using the available communication platforms and tools. In their public communication and information activities the Commission and the Committee highlight their respective roles.

(point 24) The Commission's Representations in the Member States and a contact point of the Committee for each of those Member States will inform each other on their communication plans and will join efforts to participate, wherever appropriate, in the events they organise. The facilities of the Commission's Representations in the Member States will, by agreement, be available for Committee's initiatives where this is appropriate and logistically possible. It may also be necessary to consult with the European Parliament Information Offices, where appropriate.

Furthermore, the SC also takes into consideration the statement made in the EC Work Programme for 2016 (p.5) and its possible implications: "We need to start work now to secure Europe's future sustainability. We will present a new approach to ensuring economic growth and social and environmental sustainability beyond the 2020 timeframe, taking into account the Europe 2020 review and the internal and external implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals."

3.Current state of the Europe 2020-strategy

The Europe 2020 strategy has never delivered the expected level of political influence. Its three pillars of inclusive, smart and sustainable growth are not delivering the expected results, and there is uncertainty surrounding the future of the process. A mid-term review of the strategy by the European Commission scheduled for 2015 has been postponed for the time being, until after the 2016 Spring Council. This adds an element of uncertainty to the work of the SC,butalso offers an opportunity to formulate some political and practical proposals in good time. The realityis that the problems that the strategy was created to solve still persist:

  • efforts to promoteinvestment, job creation and economic growth continue;
  • poverty and social inequality are constantly rising in many countries of the EU, as social goals are subordinated to economic ones;
  • years of increasing public and private debt, followed by austerity measures, have pushed the EU further away from creating a sustainable and fairer Europe;
  • furthermore, none of the EU's strategies give adequate consideration to environmental concerns or climate change;
  • sustainabilityis not at present a key priority.

Furthermore, the following related challenges need attention:

  • the threat of multiple-speed EU policy-making and the rise of Eurosceptic political opinions;
  • the complicated and inefficient Open Method of Coordination (OMC) decision-making process;
  • a general demand for stronger political and legal accountability mechanisms;
  • toomuch emphasis on short-term measures and the lack of a post-Europe 2020 vision.

There are structural problems with the inclusion of the strategy in the new Commission’s working methods. There is a need to harmonise the main short–term objectives with the long-term purposes of the strategy.

Despite the shortcomings of Europe 2020, it would be a mistake to do away with it. Europe 2020 is an opportunity to rediscover the future, promote convergence and strengthen long-term drivers of growth.

The main challenges from the point of view of organised civil society in each of the three pillars are described briefly below.

3.1Social Progress – Inclusive Growth

To mitigate the social impact of the economic and financial crisis, it is crucial to attract more investors, to create jobs and in particulargood-quality and sustainable jobs. The role of entrepreneurship and the potential of small and medium-sized enterprises and the social economy have to be seized fully. The aim should be a better balance between flexibility and security in the labour market, with full consideration for the need to anticipate and develop future skills, especially digital skills and competences. The fight against poverty and social exclusion has to be givenpriority in all Community actions. Social inclusion policies should have priority in the Annual Growth Survey (AGS) and in the NRPs, and thesocial dimension of the EMU needs to be mainstreamed into all NRPs.

3.2Economic Challenges – Smart Growth

The main economic challenge is to increase competitiveness.Civil society should be involved in the Investment Plan for Europe by selecting and implementing projects. Various stakeholders should have better access to financial decision making.

During the mid-term review of the Europe 2020 Strategy the concept of the strategy has to be completed by focusing on the synergy of the Investment Plan and the on-going implementation of the Cohesion Funds. The core idea is to coordinate European investments in line with European needs and, more specifically, ensure that national and European core interests have long-term vision. At a time when resources are scarcerthan ever, the EU budget must be geared to results. The mid-term review of the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) will look at how better to target funding on the priorities we face.

In order to put more emphasis on long-term vision in Europe 2020,the strategy should include specific measures to prepare for the strategy's next decade.

The meaning of smart growth is now mostly connected with the cutting edge, entrepreneurship and data intensity. Civil society should discuss those economic factors that shape the post-financial crisis reality;how to encourage tangible and intangible investment, improve the business environment,promote research and job creation and upskill human resources, and how to strengthen governance and build resilience. The means of preparing civil society to avert and cope with crises do exist, but they require more effective management and closer cooperation between all levels representing institutional, economic and social interests.

3.3Environmental Issues – Sustainable Growth

There needs to be a transition from the indicator-based approach to economic growth towards sustainable development, in terms of economic, social, environmental and intergenerational changes, on the basis of Article 3 of the EU Treaty. Work on Europe 2020 should be coordinated with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from September 2015. These 17 goalsand their derived indicators aspire to tacklea number of issues, including the fiveheadline targets of the Europe 2020 Strategy (employment, R&D, climate change and energy, education, and poverty).

4.The EESC's priorities for the 2015-2018 period

In the field of Europe 2020, the EESC President has outlined the following targets for the future[1]: "The Europe 2020 strategy must be reinforced, its objectives must be more clearly defined, indicators other than GDP must be used and civil society and national parliaments must be given a stronger role. In addition, it is imperative to encourage, promote, simplify and diversify access to funding (of the Investment Plan for Europe). Selection criteria must comply with the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy, make the EU more competitive and highlight the impact on jobs. Civil society and the social partners should be assigned a real role in drawing up the (country-specific) recommendations".

In order to give a civil society inputinto inclusive, smart and sustainable growth, the 2020 SC could carry out a number of activities:

4.1Working towards development-oriented European governance

One of the SC goals would be to design a strengthened political and functional model for a development-oriented European governance. To achieve this, the new type of economic governance will need to be backed up by historical, cohesion-oriented development tools. In addition to economic governance, territorial evidence-based regional aspects of development are a crucial element of social inclusion, as is the Beyond GDP concept. This new kind of Beyond 2020 vision could help to enhance the participation of civil society in socio-economic governance.

4.2Contribution to the European Semester – the AGS opinion

There is no formalised civil society input into the policy-making cycle referred to as the European Semester, e.g.Annual Growth Survey (AGS), Country-Specific Recommendations (CSRs)and National Reform Programs(NRPs)). Since there are serious time constraints, the SC must organise its work carefully in order to be able to contribute to the process[2].

Possible measures: Draw up an opinion on the AGS– to be published on 11 November – in time for the Spring Summit and establish a discussion on the CSRswith stakeholders as soon as possible after their publication at the end of May.

4.3Promote the sustainable development dimension of Europe2020

The Europe 2020 Strategy and sustainable development are the only two, all-compassing horizontal strategies that the EU is currently pursuing. It is paramount that there are no contradictions in the policies in these two areas, since there are important overlaps between them.

Possible measures: Ensure that all work on Europe 2020matters takes due account of the 17 SDGs from September 2015.Start exploratory work on increasing synergies between Europe2020 and sustainable development with a view to merging the two strategies. The review of the MFF in 2016 can provide another timely opportunity to tie the EU budget more closely to current policy priorities.

4.4Indicators and Methodology: Beyond the GDP approach

Civil society supports the development of a monitoring system based on indicators that take account of households' disposable income, the quality of life, environmental sustainability, social cohesion and the health and overall well-being of present and future generations. There is a possible role for anenlarged network including national ESC's regarding qualitative composite indicators beyond GDP (taking into account, for example, well-being and governance), but this must be critically evaluated.

Considering the concerns about a lack of focus in the EU'slegislative process, the planning and proposal phase should clearly refer to the priority regimes of the already existing integration plans (such as Europe2020), with more detailed presentation of how the proposed policy steps and legal measures of EU secondary legislation serve as a basis for realising the plans concerned (e.g. Europe2020 flagship initiatives). This approach to harmonising various sectors of policy-making at pan-European, national and regional level, should be reflected in the opinions of the EESC, particularly by making concrete new proposals concerning the AGS and the CSRs. This method could help to avoid the subordination of certain policy areas and goals, which has happened with social security goals in Lisbon’s dominant "growth and jobs narrative".Possible measures: Exploring the possibilitiesof launching preparatory work for the development of a set of "beyond GDP" indicators, based on promoting "fair, sustainable well-being".Well-prepared, sector-specific information requests should be sent to the SC network in order to streamline the information gathering process.

The EU legislative process should include direct references to measures enabling the proposed EU actions to contribute to achievingthe Europe 2020 objectives. The follow-upphase should explain why the legal acts concerned have failed to deliver noticeable results and what further steps need to be taken to combat structural implementation deficiencies.

4.5Monitoring and decentralised cooperation

The limited involvement of non-governmental stakeholders at both EU and national levels remains an important flaw of the Europe 2020 strategy. Neither the social partners nor other civil society organisations currently play a significant role in the European Semester. In order to remedy this, it would be useful to establish decentralised network-based cooperation with the national ESCs and other civil society organisations. Cooperation, based on a digital platform (single access point), would make it possible to harmonise and rationalise consultation with civil society representatives regarding their involvement in the drafting, revision and implementation of Europe 2020-related content, adding transparency and accountability to the implementation of the strategy. Ultimately, soft law measures (guidelines, agreements, declarations, compromises, codes of conduct etc.) could be developed by stakeholders for stronger civil society involvement.

Possible measures: This digital platform (in connection with CESlink), with the participation of the national ESCs and possibly with the other members of an enlarged network, would involve an information cycle,with the collection of data from national level. This could be supplemented by the cooperation of EU-level actors[3]. The 2020 SC could serve as the coordinator and evaluation centre for information gathered on the implementation of Europe 2020. Such a digital platform could process information more efficiently than before and deliver stakeholders' contributions in a timely manner, matching the timeframe of the streamlined European Semester.

4.6Cooperation with national ESCs and similar organisations and enlargement and improvement of the network

A revamp of governance is necessary to achieve better ownership and consequently a more result-oriented process. The EC should propose specific policy incentives for that. National ESCs and similar organisations should work more closely with their governments on the implementation of the CSRs and the adaptation of the respective NRPs. It is therefore necessary to strengthen dialogue within the Member States in order to allow a regular information flow regarding the streamlined European Semester.It is also important to work towards a new phase of cooperation – expressed as a pact or an agreement – between the EU and its stakeholders and between Member States.

There are however bottlenecks in the system, and dissemination of best practices is not systematically applied. Cooperation with national ESCs has to be reviewed and its setup needs to be improved e.g. by encouraging more thematic data exchange, ensuring a more timely delivery of formal contributions and promoting the information exchange platform. To this end, as well as to enhance transparency, tailored criteria for selecting the future cooperation partners need to be established.

Possible measure:to present a stakeholder analysis of the progress made in selected Member States. Such an analysis – undertaken via an internet-based consultation of the national ESCs –could follow the CSRs,issued by the European Commission at the end of May and endorsed by the European Council at the end of June. Indicative national contributions, based on national contributions and the results from the monitoring processcould be ready for early October.

The creation of a network, enlarged beyond the national ESCs,should be envisaged. In order to achieve effectiveness and quality, in-depth analysis is necessary to evaluate the expert knowledge and capacity of organisations that could potentially become members of the network. Such an analysis should also take into account the optimal size of the future network and the characteristics of the revamped European Semester.Therefore capacity-building should address both national ESCs as well as other stakeholders.

Well-tailored questionnaires and brochures should be used to keep the information exchange within this network effective and relatively easy to develop. The general use of the abovementioned digital platform is strongly recommended. The structure and methodology of the evaluation phase should be dealt withby setting up common standards for this phase.

4.7Communication

As regards external communication, there is a need for regular Europe 2020 events in the Member States, and accompanying debates. It is vital to cooperate with successive Presidencies of the EU Council on how to address jobs and growth-related matters more effectively at national and local level. Any such activities must be coordinated with the EESC Communication Group.