European gas industry abandons deal to retrain workers for low carbon economy

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The European gas industry has walked away from an agreement on retraining and support for hundreds of thousands of workers to prepare for the transition to cleaner energy, in a setback for EU decarbonisation plans.

The Just Transition European Framework Agreement was designed to provide guarantees for retraining and job protection, in anticipation of large-scale lay-offs caused by the move away from fossil fuels.

European Commission funded negotiations between unions and industry body Eurogas began in mid 2023 and talks went through five rounds before breaking down over the summer. According to several people close to the negotiations, the board of Eurogas concluded it could not sign up to the framework at a meeting this month.

Eurogas, which has more than 100 members including companies such as Shell, TotalEnergies and Equinor, declined to say who had opposed the plan but people involved in the talks said a number of its members were reluctant to endorse the framework because of the legal implications.

The framework would have been legally binding and the first continent-wide deal between workers and fossil fuel companies focused on the decarbonisation of the energy system. Two unions, EPSU and IndustriALL Europe, represented workers across the gas sector, which employs more than 220,000 people according to Eurogas.

The negotiations have been closely followed by the European Commission as part of the European Green Deal, which aims to push the EU to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Eurogas said that although the negotiations had “not resulted in a formal framework agreement, we believe we can still find meaningful common ground”.

“We are ready to explore alternative avenues, such as a memorandum of understanding, to establish best practice and provide the basis for productive ongoing conversation.

“Our members remain fully committed to supporting a just transition for the gas sector,” it added.

IndustriALL told the Financial Times that Eurogas’ withdrawal from the negotiation will “deprive gas workers in Europe” and was a “missed opportunity . . . to jointly develop a tailor-made and sector specific response to the challenges of the transformation in the gas industry”.

Jan Willem Goudriaan, EPSU General Secretary, said: “Eurogas has consistently said that it supports the need for a just transition. However, when the time came for binding commitments, it walked away.”

The commission said that it “regrets that these negotiations have failed” and that it would “continue supporting the joint activities of the gas sector social partners by organising their meetings and facilitating their discussions”.

The agreement would have applied to workers in a range of roles, from offshore gas fields, to pipelines, storage facilities and home gas fitters.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has said that Brussels would present a “quality jobs roadmap” for the EU workforce “to support fair wages, good working conditions, training and fair job transitions” as part of the its next 5-year mandate, which starts this year.