FIEC Newsletter – 24 Οκτωβρίου 2023

Kjetil Tonning, Chairman of Task Force “Ukraine” and FIEC Honourary President, visited Ukraine last week.

On 18 October, he chaired a special Task Force meeting from the premises of FIEC’s Ukrainian member federation, the Confederation of Ukrainian Builders (CBU) in Kyiv.

Prior to this meeting, Kjetil Tonning also visited the city of Irpin, in the Kyiv Oblast, where he saw the damage caused by the war, but also the reconstruction efforts that are already under way.

On 17 October, the European Commission launched the new “EU Taxonomy Stakeholder Request Mechanism“.It allows stakeholders to submit suggestions based on scientific and/or technical evidence on new economic activities that could be added to the EU taxonomy or on potential revisions of technical screening criteria of existing activities.

The mechanism will be continuously running, allowing respondents to submit their input at any given time.

On 15 December 2023, all submitted requests will be processed by the Platform on Sustainable Finance’s Technical Working Group.

The results of the public consultation on the Whole Life Carbon (WLC) Roadmap were presented to the participants of the EU Webinar held on 17 October.In general, stakeholders pointed out that there is a need for a robust WLC framework and for mandatory maximum values for buildings at national level, with guidance from indicative EU values.

Stakeholders also see a clear role for the EU to develop a common calculation methodology. The WLC Roadmap is expected to be published by the end of 2023.

In addition, the European Commission provided an overview of the EU Taxonomy Delegated Acts and the reporting requirements for non-financial and financial undertakings as well as on the forthcoming revision of the Construction and Demolition Waste Management Protocol. A first draft of the revised Protocol will be ready by the end of 2023 and the work to finalise it will continue until June 2024.

The presentation will be available soon.

In its Work Programme for 2024, the European Commission announced that the process to establish a 2040 climate target will be launched “to keep the EU on track towards climate neutrality by 2050“.The newly appointed Vice-President for the European Green Deal, Maroš Šefčovič (Slovakia), and the new Commissioner for Climate Action, Wopke Hoekstra (Netherlands) had already announced that they will defend an EU-wide goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 90% by 2040.

In the programme, the Commission also announced a new initiative on water resilience to ensure access to water for citizens, nature and the economy.

In addition, the Commission will initiate a series of “green social dialogues” and “clean transition dialogues” with the industry and other stakeholders.

On 18 October, FIEC participated in the Stakeholders’ Group of the European Labour Authority (ELA) meeting in Brussels.ELA’s Director General, Cosmin Boiangiu, and his team reported on the latest developments and achievements within the Authority, with a special focus on construction.

The Authority reported on the last activities related to the “Year of Construction“, such as events for employers on posting of workers, concerted and joint inspections, and the launch of the communication campaign on construction. The ELA also presented a series of events and initiatives for the 30^th Anniversary of the European Employment Services (EURES) in 2024 and discussed on how Social Partners can be associated.

On 17 October, the European Parliament adopted its position on the European Commission’s proposal for a regulation establishing a “Ukraine Facility”. The Council is expected to follow up later this year.

With this vote, the Parliament improved and endorsed a proposal for a € 50 billion facility to support Ukraine’s recovery, reconstruction and modernisation from 2024 onwards, a move which FIEC welcomes.

Nevertheless, a problematic point for FIEC remains concerning the eligibility of bidders.

In its report, the Parliament keeps provisions enlarging the number of eligible companies far beyond the general eligibility rule which restricts bidders to those from the EU Member States, the EEA area, Ukraine and certain neighboorhoud countries.