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EUROPEAN COMMISSION
PUBLIC CONSULTATION ON THE EUROPE 2020 STRATEGY
Name: Eurocadres
Contact details:
Address: Bd du roi Albert II, n°5
B - 1210 Bruxelles
Phone number: +32 2 224 0730
E-mail: [email protected]
Country of residence: Belgium
Language of your contribution: English
Type of organisation:
Member State
Public authority
Registered organisation
Registered company
Individual citizen
Non-registered organisation/company
Other, please specify:
Trade Union
Main area(s) covered by your contribution:
Economic and financial affairs
Competitiveness
Industry
Single market
Employment
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Research, development and innovation
Digital economy
Climate, energy and resource efficiency
Education
Poverty/social exclusion
Other, please specify:
Register ID number (if you/your organisation is registered in the Transparency
register):
803183412905-34
Your reply:
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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,
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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.
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annual commitments by the Member States and country-specific recommendations prepared
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 and 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.
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.
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 the strategy?
Eurocadres gives full support to the Europe 2020 Strategy, while it enhances many
knowledge intensive sectors. The headline targets are at the heart of Eurocadres’ goals
and activities (employment, education, research and development investments and the
fight against social exclusion).

Overall, do you think that the Europe 2020 strategy has made a difference? Please
explain.
The challenge was disturbed by the worst global financial crisis the EU has ever faced.
Therefore the EU had to focus primarily on the exit from the crisis while trying to achieve
a sustainable future. These facts had a significant influence on the targets, especially the
one on combatting poverty and social exclusion was victim of the harsh impact of the
crisis.

Has the knowledge of what other EU countries are doing in Europe 2020 areas impacted
on the approach followed in your country? Please give examples.

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?
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EUROCADRES considers Social Dialogue to be the key on issues such as employment,
education and research, development and innovation. Therefore, EUROCADRES
believes that governments and social partners must collaborate to become an effective
working tool by organising meetings to focus on sectors with particular problems that
affect, specifically, employment, education, research and development which are some of
our main goals as a social partner. Cooperation constitutes an activity which is
encompassed within the context of the European Union international relations and is
closely related to the global policies that determine development processes, which it aims
at influencing. This requires general coherence between long-term objectives and
specific actions performed, as well as between the results pursued and the means
employed. The involvement of the social partners is crucial for success in all societal
development. As social partner Eurocadres assumes its responsibility in this work.
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
Do the current targets for 2020 respond to the strategy's objectives of fostering growth
and jobs? [Targets: to have at least 75% of people aged 20-64 in employment; to invest
3% of GDP in research and development; to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least
20%, increase the share of renewables to 20% and improve energy efficiency by 20%; to
reduce school drop-out rates to below 10% and increase the share of young people with
a third-level degree or diploma to at least 40%; to ensure at least 20 million fewer people
are at risk of poverty or social exclusion].
Research and innovation are essential to create new, better paid and more durable jobs and
sustainable economic growth, to improve quality of life and to boost Europe's global
competitiveness. Budget cuts on research, development and innovation weakens Europe’s
competitiveness and the chances of creating more and better jobs. Investment must never
be considered as an expenditure but as a way towards achieving future prosperity on being
able to exit the economic crisis. EUROCADRES demands a real commitment from
governments to achieve the 3% of GDP in research and development and to call on
countries which are cutting and not investing.
Despite a slight increase the expenditure on R&D remains lower that the 3% target (almost
1%) especially linked to private investment. Regarding Research & Development national
targets can be greatly affected if private companies move their research abroad. This
impacts the overall figures for a country as the target 3% include both public and private
investments.
Average gas emissions at EU level decreased by almost 18%. Of course the economic
slowdown had a significant effect on emissions reduction.
The share of early school leavers has been steadily declining since 2000, but the rate still
remains above the 10% goal. Worsening employment conditions, especially for young
people, have encouraged them to stay longer in the education and training systems. This
hampered the move towards the goals set by the 2020 strategy.
Most of the work needs to be done on the fight against poverty and social exclusion, because
the target (not more than 96 million people at risk) seems way out of reach. The risks of
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income poverty, material poverty and low work intensity are affecting some 124 million
people (2012 figures).

Among current targets, do you consider that some are more important than others?
Please explain.
Eurocadres consider education, qualifications, development and skills as basic building
blocks of the knowledge-based economy. We also think that the involvement of social
partners in the process of defining the education framework is essential. The linkage
between social partners, schools, institutions of higher education and of research needs to
be strengthened. We want a higher education area with excellent working conditions in order
to foster excellence in European research.

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/too ambitiously/not ambitiously enough?

What has been the added value of the seven action programmes for growth? Do you
have concrete examples of the impact of such programmes? ["Flagship initiatives":
"Digital agenda for Europe", "Innovation Union", "Youth on the move", "Resource efficient
Europe", "An industrial policy for the globalisation era", "Agenda for new skills and jobs",
"European platform against poverty"].
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?
Eurocadres calls for urgent action to be taken to promote growth. Governments and social
partners have to act together on job creation, promotion of higher education and research.
Continuous youth unemployment is creating a so called “lost generation” just because
ineffective macroeconomic policies have not delivered enough jobs and growth. It is
absolutely necessary to invest and provide young people and graduates with good quality
jobs, ongoing education and better mobility possibilities in Europe.

What are the most important and relevant areas to be addressed in order to achieve
smart, sustainable and inclusive growth?
Social cohesion needs to be part of a growth-strategy. We value innovation as an overall
principle in working life and as an important pillar for growth and we see it as something that
has a major impact on lifelong learning, sustainable development, creativity and social
dialogue.
We also want to enhance free mobility across countries. Therefore overly complicated
procedures for getting qualifications and diplomas recognised need to be simplified .
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Our members are to a large extent engaged in the organisation of work, so they are able to
make proposals for the improvement and efficiency of the company they are working for,
thus contributing to industrial progress, competitiveness and growth as well as to social
progress and solidarity.
We, above all, consider collective and social bargaining as milestones in the building
processes of the EU. This is an important element of added value to the European social
model. In this context, social dialogue should always be on the table whenever “growth” is
discussed.

What new challenges should be taken into account in the future?
We absolutely need a stronger knowledge-based Europe. In the context of the mid-term
review of the EU budget, the share of education and research resources must be raised
considerably to support job creation.
High-tech industries and services, digital internal market, promotion of entrepreneurship and
start-ups are key measures in view of developing the EU internal market and creating job
opportunities.
The effectiveness and reinforcement of social dialogue are the conditions for establishing
workers’ solidarity and social rights in the labour market, rather than leaving the single
market as simply the free movement of capital, goods and services.

How could the strategy best be linked to other EU policies?
We need an integrated approach to tackle a number of challenges and connect policies in
the economic, fiscal, social or single market areas. Efficiency and collaboration are key
principles in the design of all EU policies. All the actors on EU level (politics, employers and
employees) have to work together and put aside their differences in order to achieve a better
environment for job creation. Also the European Semester, Europe 2020 and now the
Juncker political guidelines need to be aligned.
The potential of social dialogue (overlapping all EU policies) needs to be strengthened, a fair
and equal negotiating structure to guarantee workers’ rights is essential whenever workload
is at stake.
A closer cooperation between policies is needed to take away the differences in the
regulation of professions in the Member States, they are one of the most serious obstacles to
worker mobility in Europe.
Demographic changes are influencing every single policy area, therefore the EU urgently
needs to develop strategic plans to deal with Europe’s ageing population, since this is a
challenge that effects the entire society, it cannot be solved other than by cooperation of all
representative organisations of this society.

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?
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Tools

What type of instruments do you think would be more appropriate to use to achieve
smart, sustainable and inclusive growth?
It is very unlikely that we will ever reach again the same levels of growth we have known
since the fifties. We will have to learn to live with much more moderate levels than ever
before. This means a drastic turnover of the way we deal with the organisation of our society.
We have to rethink our national deficit spending policies, without concentrating on fearce
austerity measures alone. Austerity has proven itself the wrong way to cure the crisis. We
believe that a modest degree of growth can be obtained by a plan of strategic investments in
innovation, research and higher education, coupled with policies for social cohesion and
inclusion, and investments directly financed by the EU to promote an economy based on
skills and knowledge. In the construction of the future of Europe, a greater involvement of
citizens in decision-making is essential. The newly elected parliament could play a great role
as the new level of European democracy, and not act as the sum of national representatives,
defending their own national growth related interests.

What would best be done at EU level to ensure that the strategy delivers results? What
would best be done at Member State level?

How can the strategy encourage Member States to put a stronger policy focus on
growth?

Are targets useful? Please explain.

Would you recommend adding or removing certain targets, or the targets in general?
Please explain.

What are the most fruitful areas for joint EU-Member State action? What would be the
added value?
3) Do you have any other comment or suggestion on the Europe 2020 strategy that
you would like to share?
It is a given fact that the preceding strategy, namely the Lisbon agenda, did not fully
deliver, and there was no reflection to the question why this initiative failed.
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Some targets in the Europe 2020 strategy are the same as those already put forward in
the Lisbon agenda. It is therefore insufficient to repeat that R&D should be 3% when the
causes why Lisbon failed on this target were not properly investigated.
The same remark is valid for the increase in the employment rate which is mostly due to
the use of atypical contracts, in the times of crisis. In the new 2020 strategy the term “job
quality” is no longer visible.
And what about the role of the financial markets? The Commission itself admits that
there were defects in the analysis of Lisbon. Then we should expect that the issue of
regulation of the financial markets would be a topic for the Europe 2020 strategy. This is
however not the case. The Commission is rather quiet when these contributory causes of
the crisis are at stake.
We have to be very careful in the follow up of the language the Commission is using in a
lot of its documents: For instance on a number of occasions they changed the word
“better” into “smart”. This is the case for the “regulation” agenda and also for the "growth”
path.
The underlying purpose is well known: for instance in the case of “regulation” it means to
limit the regulatory capacity of the public authorities. Also the description of growth as
“smart” may be inadequate to solve a complex problem. Will social stability and social
cohesion still be a part of the redefinition of growth?
The Commission still focuses on some priority fields, such as “fiscal consolidation and
long-term financial stability”, and in order to achieve this the Commission uses structural
reforms in pension, health care social protection and education systems.
If these reforms mean a reduction in their budget, as is the case for education and
healthcare in many countries, the pressure of privatisation will increase. Such a
development may cause inequalities.
The Commission has clearly chosen the budgetary consolidation path. This should
support "growth enhancing targets” such as education, skills and R&D.
We have read in the council conclusions that the Commission is seeking innovative
sources of financing in order to cope with the consequences of the crisis; such an
innovative measure should be the taxation of financial transactions, dividends and the
highest incomes. We are waiting to see whether this will be the case.
Very few documents of the commission reflect on how to exit the crisis, the focus
remains on the control and application of the Stability and Growth pact. The Commission
needs urgently to develop a vision on the future, the notion of European capitalism has to
be redefined, there is more to do than just cope with immediate challenges like the Greek
debt crisis.
In general we can say that there is an insufficient elaboration of the new strategy’s social
dimension. The actions proposed are inappropriate as far as combating poverty,
improving gender equality, job quality and social inclusion are concerned.
Short term economic recovery is overemphasised at the expense of long-term objectives
such as welfare, social inclusion and environmental sustainability.
The causes of the crisis, the unregulated financial markets, the social inequalities, and
the global imbalances are not addressed.
Jobs are not the only answer to the social problems, the fight against poverty, the
reinforcement of social protection and a minimum income for all are even more
important.
Quality jobs are needed, they go far beyond flexibility and self-employment.
Thank you for completing the questionnaire. Please send your contribution, along with any
other documents, to [email protected].
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