Considering the ongoing digitalisation and transition to green energies in Europe, members of the European Parliament highlighted the European Union’s dependence on imports of resources and called for more recycling of Critical Raw Materials (CRMs), finding alternative solutions to them and domestic sourcing during a plenary session of the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE committee) held in Strasbourg on 24 November.

As rapporteur, MEP Hildegard Bentele successfully presented the European strategy for critical raw materials’ report.

Extremely glad about the huge majority of colleagues (543:52:94) who supported my strategic initiative report on #criticalrawmaterials. It shows that colleagues care about the fact that we need a resilient industrial base for the Green Deal and the twin transformation, … (1/3)

— Hildegard Bentele (@hildebentele) November 24, 2021

The increasing use of technologies led to a higher demand for CRMs. By highlighting the need to boost the EU’s strategic autonomy in CRMs, MEPs propose to work towards the EU resilience and securing strategic value chains for a green and digital Europe. MEPs’ recommendations include, amongst others, the diversification of CRMs sources, better funds for CRM projects under the National Recovery Plans and the Taxonomy Regulation, and stronger controls of EU exports of CRM waste products.

For more details, please read the ITRE Committee press release.

On 1 July 2021, Slovenia took over the Council of the EU’s Presidency from co-member state Portugal. During its 6-month term, the Slovenian Presidency has committed to fulfil the previously agreed on common priorities while narrowing their action down to specific guidelines in line with its motto “Together. Resilient. Europe”.

Slovenia is concluding its Presidency with the successful Ljubljana Declaration on Gender Equality in Research and Innovation: Simona Kustec, Slovenian Minister for Education, Science and Sport, presented the declaration at the Competitiveness Council meeting in Brussels on 26 November which was signed by 37 parties. This declaration aims to rectify imbalance in research and innovation by:

• ensuring fair, open, inclusive and gender equal career paths in research;
• evaluating intersectional perspectives on gender inequalities;
• facilitating mutual learning opportunities through form-follows-function robust governance;
• employing existing and newly developed tools, such as Gender Equality Plans, to facilitate systemic institutional change and remove institutional barriers;
• addressing and counteracting gender-based violence;
• supporting active monitoring and evaluation to ensure continuous improvement.

Signatories of this declaration commit to achieve these goals by 2025. It will be supported through joint actions of the European Research Area (ERA) – the conclusions on the governance for a renewed and more inclusive ERA were adopted by the Council in November, together with the Pact for Research and Innovation.

In addition, fostering EU private-public partnerships to maximise excellence in research outcomes remained an important item on Slovenia’s agenda. Slovenia completed negotiations on public-private (9) and public-public (1) partnerships under Horizon Europe. The European Parliament approved the €10 billion budget for these partnerships, which now entered into their set-up and implementation phase. They aim to drive European competitiveness in the sectors of healthcare, clean energy, and transport. These partnerships will be key in the realisation of the EU green and digital transition and to solving other important societal challenges.

The Council addressed climate related issues by welcoming the Fit for 55 package, an initiative expected to provide the EU with tools to meet the Green Deal’s objectives of reducing by 55% the EU’s greenhouse gas emission by 2030. Slovenian Minister of Environment and Spatial Planning, Andrej Vizjak, enhanced the debate by organising a meeting on this topic during the COP26 in Glasgow with EU ministers and representatives.

This Trio Presidency was also a leader in bringing together EU member state to join cancer research efforts by adopting the Principles of Successful Patient Involvement in Cancer Research.

Slovenia will pass the Presidency over to France on 1 January 2022 – opening member state of the next Trio Presidency, composed of Czechia and Sweden. We will write about the new Trio Presidency priorities related to R&I in the January 2022 issue of the BNU newsletter. In the meantime, you can find out more about the upcoming French Presidency here.

The second meeting of the High Level Roundtable on the implementation of the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability was held online on 25 November 2021. Floris Rutjes, EuChemS President, in his capacity as EuChemS’ representative within this expert group attended this meeting, together with Nineta Hrastelj, EuChemS Secretary General, as a Sherpa (substitute).

The topic of the meeting was enforcement aspect of the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability.

Virginijus Sinkevičius, Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, chaired this meeting and provided information regarding the state of the implementation of the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability. He also thanked all stakeholders, especially the Sherpas, for their work in preparing this meeting and contributing actively to the debate around the Strategy.

The recording of this meeting can be watched here.

The third meeting of the High Level Roundtable on the implementation of the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability is scheduled to be held in-person in Brussels (Belgium) in May 2021.

As a reminder, the European Chemical Society, EuChemS, has been invited to the expert group “High Level Roundtable on the implementation of the Chemicals Strategy” set up by the DG Environment of the European Commission. EuChemS has set up an internal expert group to discuss topics regarding the implementation of the Chemicals Strategy and to propose a diversity of perspectives from EuChemS wide network to the European Commission.