The European Commission is preparing country reports and specific recommendations on the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are now integrated into the ‘European Semester’, the budgetary exercise to coordinate economic policies, initiated by the 2022 growth strategy (see EUROPE 12907/24).
These reports will be published at the same time as the spring package of the ‘European Semester’, which is expected next week, Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni confirmed on Monday 16 May (see other news).
They will summarise the progress of each Member State towards the achievement of the SDGs and will include a detailed annex, based on monitoring by Eurostat. They will also refer to the Recovery and Resilience Plans for the 24 EU Member States for which an EU Council decision has been adopted, the commissioner said on 12 May before the European Parliament’s Committees on the Environment (ENVI) and Development (DEVE).
These committees are preparing a report for the UN High Level Political Forum on progress in implementing the 2030 Agenda and its 17 SDGs (New York in July).
Mr Gentiloni stated that the Commission would work on a voluntary review of the EU’s progress ahead of this event.
This is one of the demands of Barry Andrews (Renew Europe, Ireland), co-rapporteur for the DEVE Committee, and Petros Kokkalis (The Left, Greece), co-rapporteur for the ENVI Committee.
“The Commission welcomes in particular the calls for an EU voluntary review. The Commission is indeed looking into this direction, together with the Council. This institutional convergence can be a strength in promoting the EU voice at UN level”, he said.
Stressing that the 2022 growth strategy emphasises equity and the duty of Member States to go beyond GDP-related targets, Barry Andrews found the trends for SDG 10 on reducing inequality worrying. Mr Kokkalis focused on improving governance and involving civil society. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)