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The so-called European Semester was created in 2010 as a non-binding soft law annual procedure for Member States to coordinate their respective economic policy. With regards to the macroeconomic, fiscal and monetary areas, this is quite logical if there is a quasi-single currency in the European Union, the euro. All European nations having accessed the monetary Union renounce by definition to an own monetary policy, which becomes now being managed from Frankfurt.
This requires that the underlying conditions to keep the single currency at a level reflecting the Union’s economic power and single market are considered and taken care of. Given its importance, this instrument of soft law can actually be regarded as rather strong.
Moreover, in recent years the European Semester has been expanded to environmental policy and more recently to broader and broader social matters. Why is this necessary and how are different political groups reacting to this trend in the European Parliament is, therefore, a necessary exercise, particularly bearing in mind that under the title “social” many competences can be in practice transferred to Brussels, even if formally they are vested and remain with the Member States.
The European Popular Group, via a new draft report authored by the Spanish member Maravillas Abadia Jover at the very beginning of the current parliamentary term, calls on the Commission to include specific recommendations on housing affordability in the European Semester and to promote housing investment, including through European Investment Bank financial instruments.
It also considers that the revision of the EU regulatory framework for the housing sector should protect homeowners from further diminishing supply. However, this has two evident flaws: first, the term “EU regulatory framework for the housing sector” is ambiguous, as the regulatory framework for the housing sector belongs mainly to the Member States, the EU having no competence on the matter beyond a single mention in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights; and second, homeowners do not need to be protected from diminishing supply, as they are actually benefitted by it – who needs to be protected from diminishing supply are those Member States nationals wishing to be homeowners and being blocked access to owning because of a diminishing supply.
The EPP rapporteur on the file additionally calls for the European Semester to address the socio-economic impact of loneliness on productivity and well-being by promoting an EU strategy. Why not promoting Member States to support the family, instead of circumventing the appeal for this traditional institution, the bedrock of society as the conservative Prague Declaration would put it? Mrs. Abadia Jover proposes a European card for large families, though according to subsidiarity this might better be achieved at national level.
The reaction from the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), in the form of amendments tabled by three of the six ECR’s Employment and Social Affairs committee members of Parliament, Mrs. Maląg, Mrs. Teodorescu and Mrs. Elena Donazzan, is to call the Commission to conduct competitiveness checks on every new legislative proposal, taking into account the overall impact of EU legislation on companies, as well as on other EU policies and programmes.
Meanwhile, the other great political group challenging the centralist trend, the Patriots for Europe group, calls on the Commission to avoid putting the burden of energy efficiency conversions of houses on families and for putting Europe at the forefront of research and innovation globally, especially in disruptive technologies, in order to meet a 3 % GDP expenditure target on R&D by 2030. In particular, it has been the Hungarian and French delegations of the latter group, represented by Mr. Pál Szekeres and Mrs. Mélanie Disdier, who are trying to correct the draft report in the said direction.
Source of image: Wikipedia