CESI trade union priorities for the next MFF

The core priorites include the following:

• With a view to fostering a sustainable Europe based on social fairness, and environmental protection and long-term economic growth, the 2021-2027 MFF should prioritise in particular:

1. social fairness and decent work, coupling EU funding to the implementation of the 20 principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);

2. digitalisation of work and public service provision, which must be developed with the active involvement of trade unions and social partners and which necessitates as a prerequisite reinforced IT networks and infrastructure in cities and areas and peripheral regions; and

3. environmental protection and climate neutrality, coupling EU funding to the environmental targets of an ambitious European Green Deal and starting from the assumption that only a socially-friendly green and digital economic agenda can secure the long-term competitiveness of the European continent.

• The volume of the MFF should reflect the increasingly central role of the EU to meet common challenges. As the public budgets of the Member States cannot be overburdened excessively, the next MFF should see the introduction of new EU own resources through a digital tax to ensure the proper taxation of online multinationals, a financial transaction tax encompassing derivatives’ trading in particular, or an environmental tax to support the aims of the European Green Deal.

• In order to ensure the proper functioning of the EU’s institutional architecture and the furtherance of the EU’s common objectives, the MFF should include the maintenance of the rule of law, liberal democracy and the freedom of the press, academics, trade unions and organised civil society as a conditions attached to EU funding, as stipulated in the EU treaties and interpreted by the Court of Justice of the EU. Member State found to be violating these principles of should be excluded for current and prospective EU funding until breaches are being resolved.

The full position is available here.