This is the key message delivered today by CEEP President, Hans Joachim Reck, at the Tripartite Social Summit in Brussels. Mr Reck built this statement around the two main items of this Spring Council: job creation and climate and energy policies.

With regard to job creation Mr Reck underlined the positive role played by public services’ employers and providers “Our members are modernising and innovating to respond to changing needs and pressures. New service models and ways of delivery are being worked out very often also in line with environmental and social criteria, which are shown among the enterprises that have been awarded with the CEEP CSR label: this has also a clear positive impact on workforce management and job creation.”

On climate and energy policies Mr Reck concentrated on the completion of the internal energy market stating that this can only be achieved by an integrated approach. “We need to similarly take into account the development of renewables, the conventional energy supply, as well as the necessary investments in modern network infrastructure both at transmission and at distribution level” stated Mr Reck, adding that “CEEP highly appreciates any attempt of the EU towards more market based instruments: At the end of the day, especially renewable energy technologies have to reach market maturity. Considering renewables, market oriented support schemes seem fit to give sufficient financial security to investors and be made less distorting towards one specific technology as other models tend to do. Market instruments should be designed in order to identify the most cost-efficient technologies. CEEP points out in particular that renewable energy producers will have to bear greater responsibility for system costs.”

President Reck concluded by stating that “CEEP calls on Heads of State and Government to adopt a common European vision on the future energy policy in this March Council. Not only to pave the way up to ambitious 2030 goals but also to effectively face the external dimension of EU energy policies, well represented by the Ukrainian crisis. Only a strong and shared political will to make European energy infrastructure grow will reduce our energy dependency and render Europe less vulnerable to externalities.”

For further information, please contact:
Andreas Persson tel. +32 (0) 2 229 21 54

CEEP gathers enterprises and organisations from across Europe, both public and private, at national, regional and local level, which are public employers or providers of services of general interest. CEEP members contribute to more than 26% of EU GDP and employ 30% of the EU workforce; CEEP is one of the three general corss-industry European Social Partners.