Citizens’ climate assemblies Britain and France have asked citizens to develop ideas and recommendations for future climate policies. These ‘citizens’ climate assemblies’ are rapidly becoming a useful tool for governments to get buy-in for the difficult policymaking of the Social-Ecological... Find out more

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) wrote a letter to the Presidents of the European Council and the European Commission to ask for urgent meetings with the aim to discuss how to reinforce the social partners’ involvement in the design, governance and implementation of the Multiannual... Find out more

Ludovic Voet is confederal secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation. His responsibilities at the ETUC cover sustainable development and climate change, migration, youth policy, non-standard work and the platform economy, education and training, and equality and non-discrimination, plus... Find out more

The European Union is facing huge uncertainties. The Covid-19 health crisis is far from over with countries struggling to prevent or halt a second wave, and their economies digesting the worst recession since the Great Depression. At the same time, the global climate emergency is intensifying and... Find out more

At her first State of the European Union speech delivered on 16 September 2020, President von der Leyen showed a valiant effort to demonstrate Europe’s resolve to put itself on a strong new path in de midst of the global emergencies of the corona pandemic, runaway climate chaos, accelerating... Find out more

As soon as the new European Commission headed by Ursula Von der Leyen was announced, an ambitious European Green Deal (EGD) was presented with the aim of making Europe the first climate-neutral continent. In short, the pact is divided into nine areas of action (biodiversity, food chains, agriculture... Find out more

Who will pay? Questioning the “deficit myth” One of the big questions raised by the Covid-19 crisis and by the plans for a Green New Deal to confront the climate emergency is: how are we going to pay for all this? Governments’ deficits are piling up and the ideologues of austerity are already... Find out more

The ETUC on the European Green Deal: ahead of the announcement of the EGD, the ETUC pointed to the urgent need for ambitious climate policies that should be inclusive and supportive to the most vulnerable regions, sectors and workers. The position paper emphasised that a concrete just transition... Find out more

Olivier De Schutter is co-chair of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food). He took part in the ETUI webinar ‘A crisis within a crisis: the European Green Deal back on track after Covid-19?’, analysing what is at stake with the ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy. We took the... Find out more

Thirty-five. This is the number of legislative initiatives announced in the Circular Economy Action Plan, entitled “For a cleaner and more competitive Europe”. They are expected to appear between 2020 and 2023. Presented by the European Commission on 11 March 2020, this plan is one of the more... Find out more