SDG Watch Europe letter to vice-president Timmermans

Published: July 16, 2018

Call on European Commission to report on SDG performance in 2019

SDG Watch Europe, a cross-sectoral coalition of more than 100 civil society organisations together with the campaign Make Europe Sustainable For All, which 25 partner organisations run across the EU reaching out to policy makers and citizens alike, advocate for the ambitious implementation of the SDGs across the EU and for the EU to become a true leader of sustainable development.

This coalition calls on Timmermans to make sure that:

– the Commission’s Reflection Paper “Towards a sustainable Europe by 2030” will clarify how the EU will monitor and report about its progress and the gaps in achieving the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs both within the EU and through its external dimension and how the EC will ensure a strong, comprehensive, transparent and participatory monitoring and assessment framework and review and accountability mechanism;
– the EU develops a means to differentiate between the parts of the 2030 Agenda for which Member States are primarily responsible and those for which an EU lead is necessary and for which the EU is to be held to account;
– the 2019 Commission Work Programme will commit to delivering a European Voluntary Review at the 2019 HLPF;
– the EU at the 2019 HLPF will report both on its internal and external policies and how these contribute or hinder the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs in the EU and globally; policy coherence for sustainable development is key in this report, where ¨both social and environmental externalities of the domestic policies should be included;
– the EU’s report will come in the form of an honest stock-taking concerning all SDGs and targets rather than only showcasing best practices or focusing on preferred policy areas; and that
– the drafting of the Voluntary Review will be based on broad consultation and a participatory process (through the Multi-Stakeholder Platform and beyond it) and that civil society representatives will be part of the EU’s delegation to the 2019 HLPF.

Source: SDG Watch Europe