The two AMEDI projects are joint projects between Directorate-General Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission as part of a long-term strategic cooperation:
- Assessing and monitoring employment and distributional impacts of the Green Deal (GD-AMEDI) running from 2020 to 2023
- Assessing distributional impacts of geopolitical developments and their direct and indirect socio-economic implications, and socio-economic stress tests for future energy price scenarios (AMEDI+) running from 2023 until 2026
The projects combine macro-economic modelling work (JRC-GEM-E3) and micro-economic modelling approaches (EUROMOD). The goal is to enhance the Commission’s modelling and analysis capacities for assessing and monitoring employment, social and distributional impacts of climate and energy policies as well as of energy market effects and price developments caused by Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.
The projects aim to provide detailed insights, for example into employment effects in the EU and its Member States across sectors and skill groups, and into welfare effects across households, including vulnerable ones, and regions, including rural and urban ones.
While GD-AMEDI originated in the context of the European Green Deal, AMEDI+ focusses more directly on energy prices and policies with a focus on ‘stress-testing’ the socio-economic resilience of European economies and societies. Both projects contribute to strengthen modelling tools for evidence-based policy analysis, including (ex-ante) impact assessments and (ex-post) policy impact evaluations.
Evidence from AMEDI in EU policy-making
The AMEDI work streams have provided, and continue to provide, important inputs to several policy files and negotiations, including:
- several proposals of the Fit for 55 packages, including the Council Recommendation on ensuring a fair transition towards climate neutrality and the accompanying Staff Working Document, as well as the proposals for
- the European Semester including the annual Joint Employment Report and the dedicated thematic Annexes as part of the annual Semester Country Reports
- the REPowerEU and the REPowerEU Plan as central part of the EU’s response to the Russian (military and hybrid) aggressions against Ukraine and its implications, including the energy (supply and price) crisis
- the impact assessments underlying the Climate Target Plans 2030 and 2040
- the guidance and assessment of updated national energy and climate plans (NECPs)
In addition, the JRC regularly publishes reports and academic papers which originate from the project.
GD-AMEDI: Detailed background and approach
While already in 2020 there was broad consensus that the green transition needs to be accelerated to contribute to a fast and sustainable recovery, there is a clear recognition that the transition will not be inclusive by default and that its employment, skills, social and distributional effects need to be taken into account in the design and implementation of policies, reforms and investments, to ensure a just transition with broad public support.
In this context, the project aims to improve modelling capacities for assessing employment and distributional impacts of climate and energy policies across Member States, regions, sectors, occupations, skills, households, and income group. As energy prices and price changes (induced e.g. by policy) play a central role in these assessments, price-based developments and their impact on employment and social outcomes receive particular attention, too.
The project endows DG EMPL with the instruments and background to conduct policy analyses related to the impacts of measures taken in carbon/greenhouse gas intensive sectors on the labour markets, employment and skills and on relevant social outcomes (including energy poverty or transport/mobility poverty).
The project also specifically supports the further development and implementation of JRC modelling tools to assess the employment and distributional impacts of climate policies in the context of the Green Deal initiatives, including by sector, skills, socio-economic background and/or income.
The project also establishes and improves an operational link between JRC-GEM-E3 and EUROMOD (EUROMOD-ITT) (or other relevant micro models and micro data) to derive an additional dimension for assessing micro-level impacts of planned policies and complementary measures.
AMEDI+: Detailed background and approach
The project builds on and extends the GD-AMEDI project and strengthens the analysis of interlinkages between JRC-GEM-E3, on the one side, and EUROMOD (or other relevant micromodels) on the other, with a view to assessing better the distributional impacts notably of climate change policies and energy policies as well as energy price developments.
The main purpose of the AMEDI+ project is to provide granular and timely evidence on the social and labour market impacts of geopolitical developments (particularly the Russian invasion of Ukraine) and the associated energy market responses, including their direct and indirect short-term and mid-term socio-economic implications.
This will be based on quick extensions and modelling improvements both for nowcasting distributional impacts of the energy (and food and raw materials) price shocks and for strengthening anticipatory, distributional impact assessments for a set of well-defined price and policy scenarios (including extreme scenarios that were not considered realistic before).
A particular focus will be on the socio-economic impacts of – and economic and social resilience to – increased energy prices, increased energy price volatility, and potential energy supply shortages. The assessment will cover direct social effects such as
- various forms and dimensions of poverty and well-being (for example energy and transport poverty)
- indirect social effects, including via labour market effects
To that purpose, the project will integrate energy market modelling work into the existing GD-AMEDI framework to assess the impacts of different energy price scenarios on various forms and dimensions of poverty, well-being, labour market dynamics and employment outcomes.
The AMEDI+ project helps to enable a more granular assessment of the pass-through of wholesale and retail energy price variation on household expenditures, taking into account policies at national and sub-national levels, and their timing and effectiveness, to address expected and/or actual impacts. The project also allows to test the socio-economic effects of hypothetical reforms, such as the introduction of means-tested social policies, among others.
In addition, the AMEDI+ project deepens ongoing analyses concerning the socio-economic effects of the green transition, for example concerning costs and dynamics of labour market transitions, impacts of price changes for other necessities such as food, and the assessment of optimal policy mixes and sequencing to ensure a fair green transition.
The AMEDI+ project allows for a granular assessment of impacts across several dimensions, including socio-economic characteristics, income groups, gender, age, rural, spatial, and temporal dimensions.
Contact
For more information, please contact European Commission experts at DG EMPL and JRC.