The ministers responsible for the EU’s single market will meet on 22 May to discuss, among other things, the EU’s long-term competitiveness and the ‘Critical Raw Materials Act’ (CRMA). For this occasion, the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU has proposed avenues for discussion on both topics in two preparatory documents.
As the 27 ministers discuss the Commission’s proposal on critical raw materials (see EUROPE 13143/2), the Swedish Presidency wants to focus on the ‘local extraction and production’ of critical raw materials.
It notes with regret the insufficient exploration of European mineral resources, but also the low public acceptance of extraction projects. “For the CRMA to reach its goals, it needs to strike the right balance between different, sometimes conflicting, interests, thus allowing increased EU production while upholding high environmental standards”, states the Swedish Presidency in its preparatory document.
It then invites Member States to exchange views on three questions: - Are the measures proposed in the CRMA sufficient to achieve the ambition of strengthening EU extraction, processing and recycling capacity as set by the Commission? - Does the Commission proposal provide the right balance between competing interests, for instance between environmental standards and the need for increased EU extraction? - How can we increase social acceptance of mining in the EU Member States?
See the preparatory document: https://aeur.eu/f/6u2
Long-term competitiveness
As for the ‘Long-Term Competitiveness Strategy’, the Presidency makes concrete proposals to complement the Commission’s communication published in March (see EUROPE 13143/3). In addition to the key performance indicators (KPIs) proposed by the Commission, the Swedish Presidency suggests setting up a monitoring structure dedicated to these indicators, which would operate on an annual basis and which could feed into the work of the Competitiveness Council and the European Council each spring.
“The added value of KPIs comes from analysing them over a longer period of time, and per Member State, otherwise they cannot provide the basis for vital policy decisions”, argue the authors of the preparatory document, to which EUROPE has had access.
The Swedish Presidency proposes that existing tools, such as the Annual Single Market Report and the Single Market and Competitiveness Scoreboard, could be used as a basis for discussion by the network of Member States’ chief economists to prepare the revision of the scoreboard.
Ministers and EU leaders could then use this work as a basis for future policy action. This type of annual structure would also allow each of the EU Council Presidencies to address the subject of ‘competitiveness’ from different angles.
See the preparatory document: https://aeur.eu/f/6u3 (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)