EU Survey on circular approaches open until 31 March
The European Commission’s Directorate General for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) invites you to participate in a targeted survey on “Measuring the application of circular approaches in the construction industry ecosystem”.The survey (can be accessed via the “Read more” button) will serve for the preparation of a study on circular approaches in construction in the EU.
You can fill in and submit the online survey until 31 March. It is available in several EU languages.
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Proposal for a “Net Zero Industry Act” foreseen for next week
The European Commission plans to publish – next week – a proposal for a “Net Zero Industry Act” that will be based on its “Green Deal Industrial Plan” of 1st February 2023.The Net Zero Industry Act (“Regulation on establishing a framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s clean energy technologies manufacturing ecosystem”) will aim at supporting the Union’s 2030 decarbonisation targets and ensuring the security of supply for net-zero technologies by setting clear manufacturing capacity objectives to be achieved by 2030.
The proposal is likely to foresee the so-called “Net Zero Resilience Projects”, rules on the duration of permit-granting procedures, on environmental assessments and authorisations. The proposal foresees also the setting up “Net-Zero Industry Valleys”. It is expected that the proposal will propose new rules on facilitating access to finance (through the Innovation Fund and InvestEU) and for public procurement procedures, which will require from tenders to demonstrate a “net-zero-contribution” of their projects. Moreover, the Regulation proposal would envisage the establishment of European Net Zero Industry Academies and of a Net-Zero Europe Platform on Skills,
According to the latest planning for “Possible items for College agendas”, the proposal could be published on 13th March.
FELM project – Final Conference
The European Social partners of the construction industry (FIEC and EFBWW) are organising a final conference of the EU-funded project “Better Functioning of the European Labour Market” (FELM). The event will be held in Vienna on 25th April 2023.
The main objective of the project is to assess the social and economic challenges linked to the increased number of third country national companies and workers on the EU labour market in the construction industry and present a series of recommendations to policy makers. The final conference will present the main insights from the study conducted during the project and highlight what could be improved in the current legal framework.
Registration and agenda will be available soon.
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FIEC responds to consultation on Foreign Subsidies
FIEC and its partners, EIC (European International Contractors) and EuDA (European Dredging Association), have responded to the public consultation launched by the European Commission on the draft Implementing Regulation on notification procedures (for concentrations and public procurement) under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR).FIEC welcomes the FSR as it is designed to fill the legislative gap whereby European companies are reversely discriminated against, as EU State Aid regulations only apply to EU Member States subsidies and not to subsidies from non-EU countries.
Nevertheless, the (still too high) thresholds for the notification procedures of the FSR and the discretion afforded to the Commission under the ex officio procedure mean that a wide legislative gap will still remain for contractors.
As only the ex officio procedure would realistically offer some possibilities for the European construction companies to re-level the playing field, FIEC and its partners urge the Commission to present a draft implementation regulation clarifying its rules.
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