A dedicated just transition directive is needed to ensure the 2040 climate target announced by the European Commission can be met without further social unrest.
Over the next 16 years, the Commission wants to achieve a 90% net reduction in reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels.
Trade unions support climate action – but already agreed climate legislation fails to convince people in affected sectors and regions because the European Green Deal doesn’t yet take into account the social and labour impacts of the transition.
Too narrow
The scope of the current Just Transition Mechanism, which is limited to regions highly dependent on coal, lignite, peat, oil shale and carbon intensive industries, is too narrow and is not properly funded.
Europe is failing to safeguard quality industrial jobs. Eurostat data from January shows that year-on-year industrial output was down 5.8% in November 2023. These figures are a canary in a coal mine: the biggest hit are the long-term investments in buildings and equipment.
Elsewhere, governments have enacted plans to address labour and skills shortages. The United States, via the Inflation Reduction Act, has incorporated meaningful conditionalities into their green subsidies. It mandates firms seeking tax credits to hire paid apprentices, support unionisation and the payment of fair wages.
The situation is the direct opposite in the EU. In the recently concluded Net Zero Industry Act trilogues, trade unions were alarmed to see even the basic references to quality jobs and apprenticeships from the European Parliament position removed or made effectively meaningless.
The Commission estimates an investment of €1.5 trillion a year would be required to reach the 2040 target. But its announcement comes just three days before the start of the final negotiations between EU institutions over new economic governance rules.
The rules would mean that just four member states would be able to make the investments needed to meet the EU’s climate commitment, according to research by the New Economics Foundation.
A change of strategy
Climate policies must consider the social, labour and industrial challenges of the transition together at the same time. A successful and competitive industrial policy that respects both legally binding decarbonisation targets and the goal to intensify social cohesion and safeguard citizens’ wellbeing is possible. This can only be done if we ensure the creation of quality jobs with a skilled workforce by insisting on social conditionalities.
At a meeting with Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal, Maroš Šefčovič and Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit on Monday 5 February, ETUC Confederal Secretary Ludovic Voet, stressed that pre-existing 2030 climate objectives are socially unfit for 55% CO2 emission reduction. Raising ambition cannot work without a Just Transition policy framework that caters for all affected communities.
“We need a dedicated EU Just Transition Directive to anticipate and manage change in a way that leaves no one behind. Appropriate funding, a quality job-rich industrial policy, social conditionalities and securing workers’ rights in the transition must be core components of the EU’s new approach,” concluded Ludovic Voet.