Background information

On 16 June 2022, the Council of the EU adopted the Recommendation on ensuring a fair transition to climate neutrality. This follows the European Commission's proposal of December 2021 under the Green Deal, a set of policy initiatives to make the EU climate neutral in 2050, The recommendation reflects the awareness that climate policy must be socially just in the context of increasing precarization caused by the pandemic and inflation provoked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Content of measure

The Recommendation encourages Member States to adopt and implement comprehensive and coherent policy packages on the employment and social aspects of the green transition. The following actions are particularly recommended.

• Support for high-quality jobs for those most affected by transformation, including the application of socially responsible public procurement practices and the full and meaningful involvement of employees and their representatives.
• Equal access to high-quality and inclusive education, training and lifelong learning, as well as equal opportunities. It is also about integrating the employment and social aspects of the green transition into national skills strategies and aligning education and training programs accordingly.
• Reducing the tax wedge for low and middle income groups and provide targeted and temporary direct income support.
• Providing access to affordable basic services and housing through, inter alia, energy efficiency improvement measures, appropriate mobility policy.
• Creating an integrated and enabling policy framework for a just transition.
• Involving the social partners at all stages of policy formulation and enable civil society to participate in policy design and implementation.
• Allocating adequate national resources to contribute to the implementation of measures ensuring a just ecological transition and ensuring the optimal use of existing instruments and funding at national and EU level.

Use of measure

n.a.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Applies to all workers	Applies to all businesses	Applies to all citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government Social partners jointly Trade unions	European Funds National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Informed	Informed
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Unknown
• Main level of involvement: Unknown

Involvement

Social partners were not involved in the preparation of the Recommendation, although it is expected that they will be actively involved in its implementation at the national level in line with the Council's suggestions.

Views and reactions

There were no direct reactions from the European social partners to the measure. From previous information it is known that ensuring a proper 'just transition' is considered by the ETUC (trade unions) as a prerequisite for a successful Green Deal. In this context, the organization also called for the implementation of the European open autonomy strategy in the social area. On the employers' side, opinions concerning 'just transition' are more subdued, e.g. SMEunited only indicates the need to take into account the specificity of small and medium-sized enterprises.

Sources

• 31 May 2022: Just transition has to include SMEs (www.smeunited.eu)
• 16 June 2022: COUNCIL RECOMMENDATION on ensuring a fair transition towards climate neutrality (data.consilium.europa.eu)
• 22 June 2022: Positioning the ETUC for an EU open strategic autonomy with a strong social agenda (www.etuc.org)