Construction stakeholders believe that the Construction 2020 initiative should be reinforced in order to fully achieve its ambitions, aimed at supporting the construction sector’s adaptation to key emerging challenges and to promote the sustainable competitiveness of the sector. To this end, major European construction representatives have united, to stress their commitment to the extension of the existing programme in the form of the “Construction 2050: Building tomorrow’s Europe today” initiative. This comprehensive framework should be fully embraced by all actors in the construction ecosystem, Member States and European institutions. Building on the results of the current Construction 2020 initiative, this new framework should be based on the following principles:

• A specific targeted approach to construction because the sector is at the crossroads of different value chains and its unique nature requires a unique approach
• An adaptable policy framework to address the evolving construction ecosystem and the transformation of the industry
• A holistic approach towards policy making in order to implement coherent and balanced policies and legislation
• A strong partnership between the European institutions, the Member States and construction social partners and stakeholders to steer the transformation of the sector with the most adequate policies and tools.

In order to implement these principles, construction stakeholders have published a common vision for the future of the construction sector. This vision identifies the main challenges for the construction sector and contains concrete proposals.

Speaking about the common vision, FIEC President Kjetil Tonning said “As we are collaborating more than ever with other federations in the construction value chain, it is only natural that we have worked together over recent months, to produce a document, with proposals from our Industry, that that has been agreed by all the participating federations. We will continue this collaboration with our commitment to support the European Commission in its implementation of these proposals and we are optimistic that they will be included in the programme that succeeds Construction 2020”.

By optimising the way construction works thanks to the development of a new inspiring and relevant policy framework, we will improve the lives of European citizens by providing higher value with fewer natural resources; and higher quality assets for owners and users. Construction is the solution industry. Addressing the challenges that the construction sector is facing means addressing the challenges of European citizens.

EU construction industry remains on right track

FIEC reports a 3.5 % growth in activity in the overall EU construction industry in 2018 and forecasts a 2.2 % growth in 2019. “Although the situation continues to vary from one country to the other, the overall picture is currently positive, with activity in new housebuilding even booming in several countries.” Said FIEC President Kjetil Tonning, presenting construction’s annual statistics. “In 2018, overall construction output in the EU amounted to €1,427 billion, which represents 9.0 % of EU GDP. This is an encouraging increase of 3.5 % compared to 2017.” reported Tonning.

According to FIEC’s statistics, developments in the EU show the following results overall:
• Behind the overall figure for the EU, there are still disparities between Member States, but only a minority of countries experienced a drop in the construction activity. Others, like Italy (+1.5 %), Portugal (+3.5 %) and Spain (+5.9 %) are recovering, but these increases in activity are measured against historically low baselines.
• The main driving forces in 2018 were the new housebuilding (+4.0 %) and civil
engineering (+4.7 %) segments. Recovery in the latter segment is a sign that the
investment policy launched under the Juncker Commission is starting to have an
impact, although this is certainly not the only driver.
• Renovation and maintenance (R&M) activity remained stable throughout the crisis,
thus having an important cushioning effect for the entire construction sector. This trend is now slowing down, as new construction is taking the lead again. But still, in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, R&M represents a bigger share of the overall construction activity, compared to new housebuilding (i.e. 25.8 % against 22.7 %).
• The level of employment in the construction industry increased again in 2018 (+1.8 %). Altogether, construction provides jobs for 14.8 million people – working in more than 3.3 million companies – which represents 6.4 % of Europe’s total employment. Against this backdrop, in several countries, the shortage in skilled labour is already seen as an obstacle for the sector’s future growth.

Tonning recalled “We advocate that there cannot be growth without investment. We therefore welcome the positive outcomes of the Investment Plan for Europe in terms of boosting both public and private investment and we support very much the continuation of such investment policy during the next EU’s financial programming period (2021-2027) via the InvestEU programme!”