11.8.2023
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
C 283/25 Thursday 16 February 2023
43.
Calls on the Commission and the Member States to make sure that the EU industrial plan can help to achieve the just transition and its objectives, including the creation of quality jobs with fair working conditions and good pay, the promotion of collective bargaining and respect for collective agreements;
44.
Highlights the importance of access to training and the reskilling of workers in industries and sectors that need to undergo fundamental changes with a view to a green and digital transition; stresses that qualifications and certified competences provide added value to workers, improving their position on the labour market, and can be transferred in labour market transitions; calls for public policy on skills to be oriented towards the certification and validation of qualifications and competences;
45.
Welcomes the contribution of the plan to delivering a highly skilled workforce for European industry by strengthening the relevance of skills, using local pacts for skills, while supporting the development of one-stop shops and local hubs for skills development, and its ambition to harness talent within the EU, and to enhance cross-border labour mobility, as well as to attract skilled labour from non-EU countries via the European Talent Pool; calls on the Commission to put forward a plan to improve Europe’s attractiveness as a place of employment for engineers and academics;
46.
Calls for the EU industrial plan to create synergies and connections with mainstream education policies owing to the high impact of this sector; stresses the need to coordinate with the European strategy for universities in order to foster cooperation with the industrial ecosystem, in particular through the implementation of strategic research and innovation actions; stresses the importance of vocational training in order to have qualified staff with green and digital skills in industries;
47.
Emphasises the need for the plan to contribute to reaching the objectives and targets for 2030, as set out in the Digital Decade policy programme, including through creating access to employment for young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEETs) and people with lower skill levels;
48.
Draws attention to the fact that while general training uptake in the EU has been increasing steadily, it is still considerably below the target for 60 % of the adult population participating in training every year by 2030, also owing to a lack of interest and a perceived lack of need for it; stresses that skills-based compensation systems are a useful tool to increase training uptake;
Open and fair trade for resilient supply chains
49.
Recalls that one in five jobs in the Union depends on exports; calls on the Commission, the European External Action Service and the Member States to promote new economic partnerships with democratic countries, so the Union and its partners can, among other things, face climate change and the consequences of the Russian aggression together;
50.
Calls on the Commission to assess current dependencies and find alternative sources to diversify Europe’s supply chains for critical technologies and raw materials, and highlights the need to coordinate better as well as joint efforts to create resilient supply chains in order to meet the EU’s industrial needs; takes note of the upcoming proposal for a critical raw materials act;
51.
Welcomes the instruments adopted during this mandate to fight against unfair practices by trading partners, notably on public procurement and foreign subsidies; calls on the Commission to make full use of them; calls, moreover, on the Commission to adopt a stronger stance on tackling unfair global competition, such as that caused by unjustified State aid;
52.
Calls further on the Commission to propose a ‘new generation of partnerships in the world’, which would make full use of the EU’s economic and political leverage with its current trading partners to ensure the Union gets the most for its industry exports and imports, while promoting its values and standards, not least human rights and the European Green Deal; calls on the Commission to use all Europe’s trade policy instruments to promote its prosperity by seeking and creating new trade partnerships and to safeguard the single market from distortions from non-EU countries;