Autumn Package

The European Semester and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) provide robust frameworks for effective policy coordination in the view of current challenges. The annual European Semester cycle sets out general social and economic priorities for the coming year and provides policy guidance to help Member States achieve these objectives. The immediate priorities are consistent with the overall priority – under the European Semester – of fostering the 4 dimensions of competitive sustainability:

promoting environmental sustainability
productivity
fairness
macroeconomic stability

The European Semester Autumn Package includes several parts:

Commission's Annual Sustainable Growth Survey

The 2024 Annual Sustainable Growth Survey puts forward an ambitious agenda to further strengthen a coordinated EU policy response to enhance the EU’s competitiveness through a green and digital transition, while ensuring social fairness and territorial cohesion.

The four priorities under the European Semester remain: promoting environmental sustainability, productivity, fairness, and macroeconomic stability, with a view to fostering competitive sustainability. This approach is in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which are an integral part of the European Semester.

The Annual Sustainable Growth Survey also sketches out the main characteristics of the 2024 European Semester cycle and explains the main new developments compared to previous cycles, notably the need to take full advantage of the complementarity of the EU funding instruments, such as RRF and cohesion policy funds.

Opinion on Draft budgetary Plans of euro area Member states

The opinion assesses the compliance of draft budgetary plans presented by euro area Member States for the coming year to ensure that economic policy among the countries sharing the euro is coordinated and that they all respect the EU’s economic governance rules.

Recommendation for the euro area

The euro area recommendation presents tailored advice to euro area Member States on those topics that affect the functioning of the euro area as a whole. The recommendation reviews fiscal, financial and structural issues, as well as institutional aspects of Europe's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU).

Alert Mechanism Report

The Alert Mechanism Report launches the annual Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure (MIP), which aims to detect, prevent and correct imbalances that hinder the proper functioning of Member States' economies, the economic and monetary union or the Union as a whole, and at eliciting appropriate policy responses.

Joint Employment Report

The report analyses the employment and social situation in Europe and the policy responses of national governments.

The Recovery and Resilience Facility

The implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility will continue to drive the EU’s ambitious reform and investment agenda for years to come. The European Semester, with its broader scope and multilateral surveillance, will complement the implementation of the national Recovery and Resilience Plans of the Member States and deliver a greener, more digital, and fairer Europe

More information on – the Autumn Package explained