SDSN’s online event of October 22, 2020 focused on the alignment of the European Recovery Plan and the European Semester with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement. The event included speakers from the European Commission , the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) , the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) , as well as representatives from the SDSN networks in Europe (Germany, Italy and Greece).
Jorge Núñez Ferrer , Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) evoked the response to the 2008 financial crisis and raised concerns regarding the rising levels of public-debt in the Member States due to the pandemic. He noted that the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis was based on the notion of economic sustainability, whereas little attention was given to the notion of social sustainability. For this reason, Mr. Núñez Ferrer underlined that Member States need to be very prudent about the way they spend the resources from the Recovery Fund. The RRF will need to appropriately prioritize public spending and the implementation of National Recovery and Resilience Plans will need to be closely monitored. In order to monitor better, greater use should be made of the big data related to the SDGs.
Eloïse Bodin , Policy Analyst at the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) , presented the five sustainability tests proposed by the IEEP together with other sustainability think tanks and which Europe’s recovery plans must pass. Ms. Bodin noted that there had been a change in semantics, putting the European Green Deal at the heart of the recovery plans. Furthermore, Ms. Bodin noted that with the 2020 Spring Package the European Semester had shifted away from a traditional growth focus. The Country-Specific Recommendations included an annex on the SDGs and recognized the interconnectedness of economic, social and environmental spheres. However, she found that, although the European Semester can be a key instrument in the EU’s progress towards the SDGs, there is an implementation gap in the Country-Specific Recommendations that needs to be closed.
IEEP proposes the following:
Furthermore, Ms. Bodin said that more coordination was needed among competent authorities at EU level as well as an independent assessment of the recovery plans.
Adolf Kloke-Lesch from SDSN Germany
observed a fundamental shift in the narrative that seems to have taken
place after the outbreak of the pandemic. Contrary to 2019, main
European documents (President Von der Leyen’s State of the Union speech,
Sustainable Growth Strategy, Commission’s working papers on the
Recovery Plans) make no or very little reference to the SDGs. What is
more, in their wording, the CAP and the Commission’s working papers on
the Recovery Plans that were discussed and released recently, do not
seem to reflect the transformations and the wording of the EU Green
Deal. As confusion is likely to emerge from the changing political
communication, Mr. Kloke-Lesch advised the sustainable development
community to limit the number of key messages that they communicate and
which should correspond to the transformations envisioned by the EU
Green Deal.
He further stressed that there was a risk of the stimulus package trickling away in a myriad of channels and levels of government, without creating long term impacts. The sustainable development community therefore needs to engage in the public debate on the recovery. So far, there has been only limited involvement of the knowledge institutions in the European Semester process, but, moving forward, organisations such as SDSN should engage with the process, at the Member State level, with the governments and the Commission representations.
Angelo Riccaboni and Sabina Ratti from SDSN Mediterranean
and SDSN Italy
reiterated that SDSN resources can be used to effectively contribute to the national and European political processes. He said that SDSN Networks have the capacity to support the integration and measurement of the SDGs in the EU Semester’s instruments, including the National Resilience and Recovery Plans (NRRP). Networks can therefore help in determining targets and indicators related to the 17 SDGs and the Six Transformations, both in the planning phase and in the monitoring phase. In particular, SDSN Networks may be able to contribute to the improvement of the SDGs social indicators. Commenting on the European Recovery Plan, Prof. Riccaboni highlighted the relative absence of a reference to youth and of a gender-equality perspective in the NGEU, despite its focus on future generation.
He, therefore, called for a global and holistic approach to sustainable development and to the SDGs as a framework for the whole Semester process. Resilience, he said, should serve as a compass for the EU’s future and the academic community should be its main advocate in the national and European policy debates. In this regard, constant interaction and dialogue among the SDSN EU Networks and the EU institutions and MPs would certainly be worthwhile. Finally, he reflected on the digital transition desired by the Commission and specified that, in order to ensure a transformative impact against each of the 17 SDGs for a greater, global, social integration, such transition should be purposeful.
Phoebe Koundouri from SDSN Greece emphasized the need for cooperation on the SDGs in Europe in order to identify sustainable pathways that can have a long term impact on our countries and the EU as a whole. She also saw the need to influence and train policy makers in building truly resilient plans funded through the Recovery & Resilience Facility.
She highlighted the work of the SDSN Working Group on the Energy Transition and the Six Transformations to Achieve the SDGS and Support the European Green Deal. This working group is currently conducting an assessment on the basis of the SDSN SDG Index and dashboards that is aimed at supporting the alignment of the Recovery and Resilience Plans, the European Green Deal and the Country-Specific Recommendations with the SDGs. This document is expected to serve as a basis for recommendations regarding national Investment Pathways that will be funded in great part through the RRF. Those Investment Pathways will be grouped according to SDSN’s 6 transformations identified by the SDSN.
María Cortés-Puch reminded the audience that the UN SDSN was a member-based organization with some 1400 members (universities, research centers and NGOs) organized under national and regional Networks. In Europe only, SDSN brings together more than 300 members that cover 22 EU countries. On the one hand, SDSN Networks work on generating knowledge and evidence on sustainable development for the attention of policymakers. On the other hand, the networks educate on sustainability - not just academically - but also by creating discussion spaces, and uniting different stakeholders.
Ms. Cortés-Puch concluded by saying that a lot needs to be done in the upcoming period. SDSN will continue its efforts of bringing these somewhat arduous processes closer to the sustainable development community and ensure that knowledge institutions are participating in them. SDSN Europe Sustainable Development Report 2020 will be launched at the beginning of December and soon thereafter the document prepared by the SDSN Working Group on the European Green Deal.
Jorge Núñez Ferrer: Resilience is the capacity to go on when things change, which also means flexibility. Some see resilience as maintaining a status quo, but it is also being able to adapt to change more easily. This means for example that a country’s economy does not rely entirely on tourism, or that it focuses on one thing and neglects others. Resilience is the capacity to absorb and to adapt to change. This is more important than sustaining things the way they were in the past.
For the RRF specifically, addressing some of the CSRs would already help the convergence.The logic of the CSRs is to compare the Member States and determine areas in which progress would be needed.
The temporary Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE) was also part of the European Semester spring package. This was opened to all Member States, but only 17 or 18 applied. It’s an additional layer of support for short-term work schemes, for instance.
Phoebe Koundouri: The wording of the European Green Deal, of the Recovery Plan and of the SDGs is not identical but the concepts are consistent. What Estelle has said is absolutely true, especially if you study the documents word by word and do the 3D mapping. It would have been better if we had an explicit SDG reference, but consistency is there. Maybe the lack of explicit SDG reference in the Commission’s documents is our fault, the one of the SDG advocates who have not been vocal enough and maybe countries find it difficult to implement the SDGs. It would therefore probably be better if we decide to communicate the 6 transformations in a stronger way.
Eloise Bodin: Indeed this is possible and is something that various stakeholders are advocating for. We see this type of strategies adopted by the well-being economy alliance, which includes New-Zealand, Iceland, Scotland. These territories have been doing a lot of work on wellbeing in the past years. In New Zealand, for instance, 83 indicators are used to measure the well-being of the population, and the Ministry of Economy uses these results for their economic policy-making. It is showing good results for now. This could one day be implemented in the long run as part of European Semester in the EU and the EU could be at the forefront of the well-being economy.
Jorge Núñez Ferre: Much of the funding that knowledge institutions can apply for goes through the Horizon programme, but also through individual DGs of the European Commission (eg. DG for Regional and Urban Policy). Knowledge institutions could also look at the national structural funds.
Phoebe Koundouri: Horizon Europe and the European Green Deal calls are a good opportunity to raise funds, especially the calls focused on citizen participation. SDSN has sufficient capacity to respond to one of these calls. SDSN European networks could try and jointly build a common proposal. Organisations should also bring in other regular, non-academic partners. This proposal needs non-academic partners, explicit co-funding that proves the interest of different stakeholders’ and deep demonstration projects. We have the capacity to bring all of this in.
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