Spring Alliance launched for EU leadership on sustainability

Main Objective

The campaign aims to contribute to the European Commission’s strategic agenda for its five-year mandate (2009-2014) so that social and environmental goals underpin all major policy proposals and in particular the budget review and policies on climate change, energy and natural resources, the internal market, economy and finance, trade and development.

In order to reach this objective a broad coalition of civil society organisations, trade unions, business organisations as well as think tanks will develop by July 2009 a Social and Green Agenda for the Next Decade in an open and inclusive way and present it to the new European Commission and promote it within the new European Parliament and the Member States (Council of Ministers and European Council). The Alliance was the brainchild of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the Social Platform and the European Environmental Bureau.

Conference

Catherine Day - Secretary General of the European Commission - stressed the progress that the European Commission has achieved up to this point on sustainability (low carbon economy) and participatory democracy (consultation).

At the same time, Catherine Day acknowledged that there is more to be done, in particular on data and tools. Likewise, a greater focus should be given to the social sector - areas such as poverty and discrimination. Catherine Day finally highlighted the need for the Commission to work on a long-term prospects.

Working groups

For the development and implementation of the campaign, specific working groups have been set up. They started on 30 January and end in June 2009.

Their main objective is to facilitate a discussion of partners from environmental, social and labour organisations around specific themes and develop common recommendations for the EU on how to deliver:

 a resource efficient society;
 green and decent jobs;
 social cohesion and inclusion;
 global responsibility;
 sustainable markets

These working groups are:
 1. New economic model: ie sustainable consumption and quality of life, fair trade and development;
 2. Infrastructure to address future challenges: i.e. social protection systems, services of general interest, education;
 3. Climate and energy;
 4. Tools for sustainable development: ie impact assessment, corporate social responsibility, EU Budget Reform;
 5. Rural development land use, water, biodiversity, and fisheries: ie the Common Agriculture Policy.

EPHA is currently involved in the Working Groups n°1, 2, 4, and 5. EPHA members can get involved in this campaign by participating in the follow-up Working Groups.

Outcome

As an outcome of this debate a two layered Agenda for the Next Decade will be adopted and consist of:

 A short document agreed by all civil society organizations, outlining the vision, the key challenges, targets and priority actions for the coming decade;
 More detailed proposals/strategies coming from working groups that are supporting the main document but that do not necessarily need to be subscribed by all civil society actors.

Next steps

 Feb-May 09: Additional meetings of the working groups to develop messages. Launch of www.SpringAlliance.eu.

 Jun 09: Plenary of all partners to agree on final messages.

 Jul 09: Presentation of the results to the Informal Environmental, Energy, Employment and ECOFIN Council of Ministers.

 Sept 09: Special event in Brussels - presentation of the results, discussion with representatives of Commission, Swedish Presidency, Members of Reflection Group, new President of the European Parliament.

 Sep-Dec 09: Presentation of the draft Agenda in publication, presentation at various events where the future of the EU, the tasks of the Commission will be discussed, and stimulate MEPs to include relevant elements in the hearings of the candidate Commissioners.

 Sept-Dec 09: Approaching the Swedish and Spanish Presidencies with proposals on how the Councils of Ministers and the European Council can support the Agenda.

 Nov 09: Seeking debate with the European Commission on how the new Lisbon agenda, and (at a slightly later stage) the proposals for the future Common Agriculture and Cohesion Policies as well as the Financial Perspective 2014-2020 can reflect the Agenda.

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