What do we do?
The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with its 17 sustainable development goals and 169 targets, has given new impetus to global efforts to achieve sustainable development. The EU has played an important role in shaping the agenda, through public consultations, dialogue with partners and in-depth research. The EU is committed to playing an active role to maximise progress towards the sustainable development goals, as outlined, for example, in the communication ‘Next steps for a sustainable European future’, in the Commission staff working document ‘Delivering on the UN’s sustainable development goals – A comprehensive approach’, and recently in the first-ever EU voluntary review on progress in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted on 15 May 2023.
This lasting commitment to the UN sustainable development goals constitutes an overriding political priority for the von der Leyen Commission. Progressing towards the sustainable development goals is an intrinsic part of the President’s political programme, and an array of deeply transformative policies had already been presented in 2020, such as the European Green Deal, the Climate Law, a new industrial strategy for Europe, and continue to this day with the Green Deal industrial plan presented in 2023, the 2024 annual sustainable growth survey and the new European skills agenda, among others.
This commitment gained even greater relevance in light of the global COVID-19 pandemic and global turmoil, which provided an impetus and strengthened the need to build back better towards a more inclusive, sustainable, just and resilient future for all, leaving no one behind. Notably, the 2024 annual sustainable growth survey reaffirmed the four priorities under the European semester, namely promoting environmental sustainability, productivity, fairness and macroeconomic stability, with a view to fostering competitive sustainability. This approach is in line with the UN’s sustainable development goals, which are an integral part of the European semester and underpin Member State recovery and resilience plans under the Recovery and Resilience Facility. Therefore, the European semester will continue to be a main vehicle for monitoring and promoting progress towards the sustainable development goals, also in a context of increased attention on sustainable and inclusive well-being beyond gross domestic product.
These priorities ensure that the new growth agenda efficiently mobilises resources for the benefit of people and the planet. To this end, a holistic and balanced approach is required, in which the EU works better together with the Member States and across policy fields. Given the division of competences between the Member States and the EU, close coordination is crucial to achieving the sustainable development goals.
Looking at the current multiannual financial framework, in its 2021 communication on better regulation, the Commission adopted further policymaking improvements to ensure that our policies support the recovery and resilience of the EU and its twin green and digital transitions in the best possible way. In this context, the Commission decided to mainstream the sustainable development goals with a view to helping ensure that every legislative proposal contributes to the 2030 sustainable development agenda.
To this end, the Commission now systematically identifies the relevant sustainable development goals for each proposal and examines how the initiative supports their achievement. What is more, links to the sustainable development goals will be included throughout evaluations and impact assessments.
At the EU level, sustainable development challenges are addressed through policies and regulatory instruments. As far as the former are concerned, the EU budget, through its spending programmes, provides a significant contribution to sustainable development by complementing national budgets, in line with the principle of subsidiarity. In doing so, the design and implementation of the EU spending programmes aim to deliver on the objectives in each policy field, while promoting sustainability through the initiatives and interventions of the relevant programmes in a connected and consistent way. In particular, 46 out of 50 of the EU spending programmes contributed towards at least one sustainable development goal in 2023
Number of programmes contributing to individual sustainable development goals
In light of the cross-cutting nature of the sustainable development goals, and in order to ensure a holistic approach in addressing sustainable development, over 99% of the budget of EU spending programmes contribute to sustainable development goals. What is more, the vast majority of the programme (39 programmes) are designed to address multiple sustainable development goals through their policy actions. The Commission presents the sustainable development goals to which each EU programme contributes, along with examples of their contribution. This is with a view to further enhancing the reporting on the performance of its programmes and providing a deeper understanding of EU policy coherence. The infographic illustrates, in a non-exhaustive manner, the many examples of the contribution of EU programmes to the sustainable development goals.
The 2023 EU voluntary review on sustainable development goals reaffirmed that the EU budget is an effective instrument to deliver major progress on the 2030 agenda and, looking ahead, states that the EU will take further the commitment to inform on the implementation of the sustainable development goals in all relevant EU programmes.
Thanks to the adoption of its Territorial Just Transition Plan, Romania received EUR 2.14 billion from the Just Transition Fund to combat and tackle energy poverty and support a just climate transition to a more attractive and greener economy.
EU humanitarian funding for nutrition, which aims at providing life-saving interventions to the most vulnerable populations, has targeted severely malnourished children in Sudan, as well as children under 5 years of age and pregnant and lactating women in many countries including Syria. Moreover, the EU supports World Food Programme initiatives such as a voucher programme for fresh food with high nutritional values in Syria or emergency food distribution and cash in South Sudan.
The EU4Health programme delivers actions to implement the 'Healthier together', 'Europe’ beating cancer plan' the 'Mental Health' initiatives and addresses selected health risk factors and health determinants. For 2022 and 2023, EUR 69.7 million has been allocated through the EU4Health programme for actions that promote good mental health.
Under the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument – Global Europe programme, EU investments via the Global Partnership for Education from 2021 to 2023 enabled 2.6 million children to access primary education and 1.2 million to access secondary education. The partnership is the largest global education fund for lower-income nations and fosters a unique multi-stakeholder approach. It assists partner countries in addressing education challenges, implementing reforms and aligning stakeholders to drive results. With around 68 partner countries, the partnership prioritises support for the most vulnerable populations, ensuring universal access to education.
The citizens, equality, rights and values programme prioritises equality across all its initiatives. In its ‘Daphne’ strand, the programme combats gender-based violence and encourages male engagement in advocating for gender equality. In 2023, the strand supported a call aiming to prevent and combat gender-based violence and violence against children with EUR 24.9 million.
Under the common agricultural policy, EU Member States have outlined measures in the policy’s strategic plans to reduce nutrient losses and pesticide use by 50% by 2030, thereby protecting water resources.
The Connecting Europe Facility supports energy infrastructure projects of common interest that have significant socio-economic benefits. An example is the 330-kilovolt interconnector between Tartu, Estonia and Valmiera, Latvia, as an important part of the efforts to synchronise electricity grids of the Baltic countries with the rest of the EU’s electricity system. The line was part of Phase 1 of the ‘Baltic synchronisation’ project, which received a total facility grant of EUR 323 million.
Under the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance, ‘SMEs Go Green Digital in the Western Balkans’ (EUR 22.5 million) contributes to increasing access to finance to enable higher utilisation of digitalisation, automation and competitiveness technologies, supporting the greening of small and medium-sized enterprises, and increasing innovation, competitiveness, growth and trade potential of the private sector via targeted investments and increased awareness within the enterprises, thus facilitating regional and EU integration.
Through Horizon Europe, ‘EIT Manufacturing’ empowers companies to foster climate-friendly practices and community impact via its ‘Knowledge and innovation community’ model. It also fast-tracks the integration of sustainable manufacturing innovations, in line with the aim of fostering inclusive and sustainable industrialisation. Furthermore, EIT Manufacturing prioritises cultivating future workforce skills and promoting inclusivity and sustainability in the manufacturing sector, thus contributing significantly to reshaping Europe’s industrial landscape.
The European Social Fund+ supports the ‘YES Forum’, a European network dedicated to empowering young people facing challenges. The forum fosters social inclusion and enhances professional skills to improve the prospects of vulnerable young people, addressing poverty and inequalities. Its activities include providing opportunities in rural areas, promoting education professionals, and reducing ‘not in education, employment or training’ rates through vocational education and training enhancements.
The LIFE programme supports the ‘LIFE SNEAK’ project, which aims at the reduction of noise from roads in the densely populated urban area of Florence, Italy, where traffic noise and vibrations combine to cause severe disturbance to the population. This will be achieved by means of low-noise/vibration surfaces and retrofitting solutions.
By the end of 2023, the Recovery and Resilience Facility supported the introduction of climate action contracts to support the introduction of new, cleaner production technologies for energy-intensive industries in Germany.
The Innovation Fund is designed to answer this goal and take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. The ‘Ecoplanta’ project aims at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from municipal non-recyclable waste to produce methanol, while the ‘ReLieVe project intends to build up a lithium-ion battery recycling facility for the production and refining of black mass.
Regional fisheries management organisations promote the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans, seas, and marine resources by improving management measures adopted following scientific advice and by promoting healthy tuna stocks in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and through the governance framework established by sustainable fisheries partnership agreements with a number of non-EU countries.
The European Regional Development Fund is helping to save properties and lives threatened by an increasing number of forest fires during the Mediterranean region’s hot and dry summer months. The fund-financed ‘OFIDIA2’ project supports a network of high-definition cameras, sensors and weather stations connected to control rooms covering 100 hectares of forest in Apulia, Italy. In Greece, cameras, drones and two off-road vehicles watch over more than 15 000 km2 of forest in Epirus.
The new EU mission in Armenia enhances confidence-building between Armenia and Azerbaijan by conducting routine patrols and reporting on ground situations and conflict incidents. It fosters a safe and stable environment in conflict-affected areas of Armenia, promoting human security and fostering the normalization of relations between the two nations. The Commission allocated EUR 16.6 million for the mission in 2023 under the common foreign and security policy.
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is a research facility on fusion as a future source of sustainable energy, with the participation of seven international partners (Euratom, China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States) representing more than half of the world’s population. Euratom provides 45.45% of all components and cash contributions to the facility through the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy.