The EU energy and climate policy agenda is bound to be tremendously busy until the end of 2021. Indeed, the EU Parliament and Council, as co-legislators, are currently analysing and preparing their amendments to reach a compromise on the Commission’s “Fit-for-55 package”. In the meantime, the latter is already working on a second bulk of legislative proposals, including the revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and a new Sustainable Products Initiative.

In this context, EuropeOn increased exchanges and communications with EU policymakers in the past few weeks.We engaged with several members of the European Parliament, while waiting for final confirmation of the lead rapporteurs on each legislative proposal. We also met with French public authorities, ahead of the French Presidency of the Council in the first semester of 2022 to hear their first thoughts on the package and present our main asks. Finally, we had discussions with the cabinet of Commissioner Nicolas Schmit, in charge of Skills and Employment.

Since the launch of our Skills4Climate campaign back in 2019, we relentlessly raised policymakers’ awareness on the need to intertwine skills and climate policies, because we anticipate that one major hurdle to the rollout of the green and digital transitions will be -and already is- the lack of professionals, and especially skilled professionals.

While we were pleased with some of the good provisions on skills in the revised proposals for the Renewable Energy Directive and the Energy Efficiency Directive, we believe that the ongoing revision is a unique opportunity for the EU to go one step further and ensure that we have the much-needed human capital across Europe to foster a low carbon economy.

You can read the last statement of Julie Beaufils, EuropeOn Secretary General on skills and the Fit for 55 Package HERE.

See other news on EuropeOn’s position on the upcoming EPBD revision HERE.