European Commission adopted its 2021 work programme

The Commission has adopted its 2021 work programme, designed to make Europe healthier, fairer and more prosperous, while accelerating its long-term transformation into a greener economy, fit for the digital age. It contains new legislative initiatives across all six headline ambitions of President von der Leyen’s Political Guidelines and follows her first State of the Union Speech.

The 2021 Commission work programme sees a shift from strategy to delivery across the following six political priorities:

1. A European Green Deal
2. A Europe fit for the digital age
3. An economy that works for people
4. A stronger Europe in the world
5. Promoting our European way of life
6. A new push for European democracy

Under the first priority “A European Green Deal”, the Commission stated to propose measures to implement Europe’s circular economy action plan, the EU biodiversity strategy and the farm to fork strategy. However, the EU Forest Strategy,  which is considered as one of important policy strategies in achieving the objectives of the European Green Deal, including climate neutrality by 2050, is missing from this work programme.

The work programme is closely linked to the recovery plan for Europe, with the NextGenerationEU recovery instrument and a reinforced EU budget for 2021-2027.

A full list of the 44 new policy objectives under the six headline ambitions are set out in Annex 1 of the 2021 work programme.

Next Steps

The Commission’s 2021 work programme is the result of close cooperation with the European Parliament, Member States and the EU consultative bodies. The Commission will now start discussions with the Parliament and Council to establish a list of joint priorities on which co-legislators agree to take swift action.

 

Source: European Commission