Brussels, 23/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - In a letter published on Tuesday 21 July, the European employers' association, BusinessEurope, called on the Luxembourg Presidency to commit itself to strengthening the role played by the Competitiveness Council at the Council of the EU.
BusinessEurope is proposing the strengthening of this role in an effort to counterbalance the weight exerted by other groupings (ENVI, ECOFIN) at the Council, whose decisions have a direct impact on business competitiveness, indicated one source close to the dossier. This same source explained “the ENVI group makes decisions that have a direct impact on Competitiveness Council dossiers, such as the case involving reform of the ETS system”. Recently, during the informal Competitiveness Council meeting, member states endorsed the project for modernising the way in which the Council functions, as put forward by the Luxembourg Presidency (see EUROPE 11363).
With regard to the goal of strengthening the Competitiveness Council, BusinessEurope is also calling for more frequent high-level group meetings on competitiveness, which currently meets up once every six months. This group was set up at the beginning of the 2000s and brings together the Directors General of the ministerial cabinets in charge of the economy and competitiveness. Its role is to prepare the work of the Competitiveness Council. Our source explained to EUROPE that “its mandate was renewed and strengthened last year under the Greek Presidency”. Although the presidency of the group has hitherto been based on the rotating presidency system, at the beginning of 2014 it was given an 18-month mandate, which facilitates greater continuity in the follow-up of the work undertaken. Now that the way in which it functions internally has been revised, the European employers' organisation would like the number of meetings to be increased to two under each six-month presidency instead of the current single meeting that takes place. This will help improve the Competitiveness Council's preparedness with regard to the other groups. Our same source said that this goal would be pursued as a means of better representing the industrial sector's interests at the Council.
4th railway package. In the context of the single goods and services market, BusinessEurope is calling on the Presidency to exert all its strength in helping to reach an agreement on the political pillar in the railway package. An agreement was recently reached during the trialogue meeting on the technical pillar (see EUROPE 11348). The Luxembourg Presidency has made the 4th railway package one of its priorities and has set out a deadline for next October for reaching an agreement on the political pillar. Jeroen Hardenbol, a political adviser to BusinessEurope, explained “we have very high hopes that an agreement will be found by then”. (Pascal Hansens)