CONCORD marked a significant success in our advocacy with the adoption of Council Conclusions on 27th November. The Conclusions represent a win for CONCORD’s work on Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (PCSD), and a step in the right direction in progressing Agenda 2030. The Conclusions focus on the development of Agenda 2030 to reach the SDGs and include some very welcome elements, particularly:
- Outline of PCSD as a target in its own right;
- Focus on tools and mechanisms to ensure PCSD;
- Emphasis on addressing spillover effects;
- The call on the (new) European Commission to adopt a comprehensive 2030 Agenda implementation strategy and establish a regular consultation platform is a major step forward.
These references to the central role of PCSD in advancing the SDGs reflect CONCORD’s advocacy work in particular leading up to and following the EU’s Voluntary Review on implementation of the 2030 Agenda. They especially echo exchanges at our dialogue event, ‘Agenda 2030 at halfway – Strengthening policy coherence for the Sustainable Development Goals’. This initiative was undertaken with the support of CONCORD’s partners, La Coordinadora, CNCD-11.11.11, within the framework of the EU Presidency Project. The event, which we held on 13th November, brought together representatives from the Spanish EU Presidency, Member States, Commission officials, the secretariat of the Parliament’s DEVE Committee, representatives from the European Parliament Research Service and experts from the ECDPM and OECD.
The event kicked off with a keynote speech from CONCORD’s President, Rilli Lappalainen. The speech set the stage for the discussion and emphasised that in light of the less-than-impressive results of Agenda 2030 at the halfway point, there is a need to step up efforts to reach the SDGs – and PCSD has a key part to play. While we have seen encouraging progress on the SDGs domestically, this has not been mirrored in the external element of the implementation of SDGs.

After the keynote speech, the discussion got underway. First, attendees exchanged on scaling up the EU’s implementation of the SDGs with an enhanced role for PCSD. Next, the conversation turned to the role that PCSD can play in policy impact assessment. Finally, attendees focused on the potential of a joint institutional and civil society approach to PCSD in Agenda 2030.

Three major conclusions came out of these exchanges:
- Effective progress with SDGs needs political will. It needs commitment and multi-stakeholder collaboration by making it everybody’s business.
- The political momentum to go forward must be kept in the upcoming European election and the establishment of a new Commission.
The PCSD community needs to forge synergies on our different bits of work. We need to become ‘friends of PCSD’.
The Council Conclusions adopted shortly after this dialogue event represent a significant win for the collective action of civil society. CONCORD applauds the recognition that PCSD is fundamental for an integrated, strategic, ambitious, and comprehensive implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
We will continue to work alongside the EU and Member States to ensure that SDG implementation results in positive outcomes not only domestically, but equally in the EU’s partner countries. In this regard, PCSD has a vital role to prevent negative spillover effects of EU policies and to ensure the credibility of the EU in its implementation of the SDGs.