Circular skills: the workforce on which Europe’s strategic autonomy depends – an analysis of the new EESC opinion

On 21 October 2026, at its 609th plenary session, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) adopted own-initiative opinion CCMI/268 by 208 votes to none, with 3 abstentions. The opinion places circular skills at the centre of Europe’s competitiveness and raw-material security. Its message is simple – and will sound familiar to anyone working in waste management: the forthcoming Circular Economy Act will only work if someone is there to do the work. Someone has to design the repairable product, run the remanufacturing line, and sort and process the secondary raw material.

In short: According to the EESC, circular skills are no longer an environmental add-on but a precondition for Europe’s strategic autonomy. The opinion calls for a circular economy competence framework, an EU skills passport, modular curricula, simpler funding and sectoral social dialogue – explicitly including waste management.

From environmental ambition to industrial strategy

The rapporteur is Adelina Dabu, a Romanian member of the EESC Employers’ Group; the co-rapporteur is Srita Heide from Germany. The text was prepared by the EESC’s Consultative Commission on Industrial Change (CCMI), which adopted it on 30 September 2026 before it went to plenary.

The opinion’s most important contribution is a change of perspective. The circular economy is framed here not primarily as a climate or waste-policy objective, but as a security-of-supply instrument. The reasoning rests on numbers:

• Import dependency. The EU depends entirely on imports for certain critical raw materials, including heavy rare earths. The Critical Raw Materials Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1252) caps reliance on any single third country at 65% for a given material.
• Value loss. The Circularity Gap Report 2026 by Circle Economy and Deloitte Netherlands estimates the avoidable value loss of linear material use at EUR 25.4 trillion a year – almost a third of global GDP. Of this, EUR 6.2 trillion stems from mismanagement of products and materials, driven by inadequate tracking and fragmented supply-chain coordination.
• Employment. According to Eurostat, sectors relevant to the circular economy already employ some 4.3 million people in the EU.

In her commentary accompanying the opinion, the rapporteur argues that the 65% target will not be met by legislation alone: it requires people able to collect, sort, recover and process secondary raw materials at industrial scale. She also describes skills as the new raw material – a phrase that neatly captures the logic of the whole document.

Where are circular skills missing today?

The EESC does not talk about generic “green skills”. It prioritises, very specifically, the qualifications closest to material flows: product design, industrial processes, maintenance, repair, remanufacturing and secondary raw-material production, complemented by sector-, material- and occupation-specific training.

Four areas receive particular emphasis:

• Circular design. Products, buildings and services should be designed from the outset to prevent waste and retain their value throughout their life cycle.
• Digital competences. The circular economy is increasingly data-driven: blockchain-based material tracking, digital product passports, AI-supported waste optimisation, predictive maintenance and smart sensors. The EESC calls for digital competence centres to be set up or expanded, where workers can also learn robotic disassembly of end-of-life products and 3D printing.
• Permanent materials and critical metals. The opinion explicitly names the collection, sorting and recycling of infinitely recyclable materials and critical raw materials as skills priorities, because closed-loop recycling is impossible without them.
• Sector-specific programmes. It sees particular potential in manufacturing, textiles and electronics.

What may matter most to readers in the sector: the EESC considers the involvement of social partners urgent not only in materials-intensive industries – steel, aluminium, glass and packaging – but also in typical utility sectors, naming energy, water and waste management, which face comparable transitions. It is rare for an EU policy document to treat waste-sector occupations so clearly as a subject of workforce planning.

From the classroom to a skills passport

The opinion is well aware that, under Articles 165–166 TFEU, the EU’s competence in education and training is limited to coordination and recognition measures. The EESC therefore does not seek a new EU curriculum; it builds on frameworks that already work, citing Europass – created on the same legal basis – as proof that the approach can succeed.

The proposed toolkit:

• European Sustainability Competence Framework (GreenComp). It can provide a common foundation if evenly introduced into school curricula and university programmes across all Member States.
• A European Circular Economy Competence Framework. More technical, with core knowledge defined for each sector and professional and micro-credentials portable across Member States, aligned with ESCO, the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and DigComp.
• A Circular Economy Skills Passport. Modelled on Europass, it would let anyone document their skills and certifications in a standardised way, supporting labour mobility across the Union.
• Erasmus+. The EESC asks for the programme to become a key instrument for developing circular economy skills.
• Higher education and vocational training. Interdisciplinary university programmes combining engineering, business, digital and sustainability; horizontal integration of circular thinking into engineering, natural sciences and economics; and vocational education and apprenticeships run in partnership with industry.

One conceptual proposal deserves attention: training should be organised around processes rather than industrial silos. Horizontal modules such as eco-design, asset tracking, predictive maintenance, recycling and remanufacturing apply equally across multiple value chains – making it easier for workers to move between sectors when the market demands it.

SMEs, vouchers and EU funds

One of the EESC’s most concrete and practical proposals is to cut “bureaucratic friction”. Small and medium-sized enterprises today often have to build in-house training programmes from scratch – a labour-intensive bottleneck. The opinion’s answer is modular, ready-to-use, standardised circular curricula, rolled out through Large-Scale Skills Partnerships.

On funding, it sets three directions:

• Voluntary national voucher schemes as the primary financial instrument for continuous learning, with minimal administration, so that companies can build reskilling into their day-to-day operations.
• Targeted reach. Funds must genuinely reach SMEs, rural areas and disadvantaged learners.
• The next Multiannual Financial Framework. Circular skills should be prioritised under the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) and the future European Competitiveness Fund. The EESC welcomes the proposal to finance the Skills Guarantee from the latter, and suggests that funded projects be allowed to spend part of their budget on upskilling and reskilling.

On the institutional side, the opinion welcomes the proposal for Skills Partnerships for Adult Reskilling (SPARK) and asks for a dedicated circular track within it, built on regional partnerships linking vocational institutions, schools and local communities with sectoral actors. It cites the European Advanced Materials Academy, led by EIT RawMaterials with a target of training 200,000 learners, as a positive example – and asks for its scope to be extended to recycling, remanufacturing and secondary raw-material processing. It sees the European Battery Alliance Academy as a similar model.

Finally, the EESC proposes an EU Circular Economy Skillset Database that would map available skills by Member State, highlight shortages and provide real-time information on training programmes and certifications. It also calls for regular skills-gap analysis and measurable targets for participation and employment outcomes.

Social dialogue and the repair economy

According to the opinion, circular skills development – training, job-to-job transition support and career guidance – should be addressed through sectoral collective bargaining, respecting national industrial relations systems. Targeted reskilling matters most for workers in sectors with recoverable material value and in regions undergoing industrial transformation. Experienced workers and groups at risk of labour-market exclusion would receive priority access to supported training.

The social economy gets a section of its own. The EESC argues that social enterprises, cooperatives and community repair cafés provide hands-on training through repair, reuse and refurbishment while creating local jobs that cannot be relocated. It asks Member States to prioritise repair courses and support for community repair initiatives when implementing the Right to Repair Directive.

Why this is not trivial is clear from our analysis of the reality of the right to repair: legislation alone does not change consumer habits if accessible, affordable repair capacity and skilled repairers are lacking. The growth of reuse markets – such as IKEA’s second-hand marketplace in Germany – likewise requires logistics, grading and refurbishment work for which today’s labour market does not supply enough trained people.

Public procurement: incentives rather than mandates

The EESC suggests that the EU use its considerable procurement power to encourage – but not require – companies to demonstrate a workforce skilled in circular practices. From the upcoming EU-level procurement regulation it expects support for innovation, for local and regional circular ecosystems, and long-term market signals.

The restraint is understandable, but the lessons of 17 EU research projects on circular public procurement raise doubts about its effect: the Commission’s expert report found that the main barrier is not a missing legal option, but that contracting authorities do not know how, do not dare, or lack the capacity to use the tools already available. One more voluntary criterion will not change that on its own.

What this means for waste management in Hungary

The EESC opinion is advisory and creates no direct legal obligations. From a Hungarian perspective, it nonetheless carries at least four lessons.

First: in this framing, waste management is not the end of the chain but one of the gateways of raw-material supply. Operating and maintaining optical sorters in sorting plants, checking the quality of baled fractions, understanding buyer specifications, and handling waste containing hazardous components – such as batteries – correctly are all competences that directly determine how much material makes it back into the loop. A shortage of skilled workers here is not an abstract labour-market problem but a material loss measured in tonnes.

Second: skills alone are not enough without a market. According to the European plastics industry’s letter to Brussels, around 1.1 million tonnes of recycling capacity has closed in Europe since 2023 – not because of a skills shortage, but because of unsustainable market conditions. Our analysis of black mass exports shows the same pattern for batteries: Hungary has built pre-treatment capacity, but higher-value hydrometallurgical recovery is missing. Training programmes must therefore move in step with investment and demand – otherwise we train specialists who have no jobs to go to at home.

Third: modular curricula and voucher schemes could bring real relief to Hungarian public service providers and SMEs. Most waste management companies have no in-house training department; a ready-made, certified module on sorting, quality assurance or digital tracking can be introduced far faster than a programme developed internally.

Fourth: in Hungarian higher and vocational education, circular thinking typically appears as a single standalone subject. The horizontal approach proposed by the EESC – embedding circularity across engineering, economics and natural sciences – would require much deeper curriculum work.

Strengths and blind spots

The opinion’s strengths:

• It ties the circular transition to the competitiveness and preparedness agenda, taking it out of the “green” drawer and speaking the language of raw-material security.
• It is unusually concrete: it names the sectors affected, the existing EU instruments and the funding channels.
• The near-unanimous vote (208/0/3) signals that representatives of employers, workers and civil society agree on the direction.

Where caution is warranted:

• No binding force. Much of what is proposed is voluntary – the voucher schemes, the procurement incentives, the competence framework – so the impact depends on implementation in the Member States.
• The demand side is missing. The opinion would strengthen the supply side, the workforce, but does not address what happens if skilled workers find no viable, competitive circular plants to work in.
• Model-based figures. The EUR 25.4 trillion value loss is a modelled estimate, not a measured figure; it illustrates the order of magnitude well but should be cited with care.
• Timing. The Circular Economy Act is still in preparation and negotiations on the next Multiannual Financial Framework are under way. The opinion aims to influence both processes; how much of it carries through will be decided over the coming months.

Conclusion

The EESC opinion puts on the agenda a question that has so far been sidelined in debates on the circular economy: who is going to do the work? EU legislation – from packaging rules through the right to repair to the forthcoming Circular Economy Act – imposes ever more circular obligations, but laws do not run sorting lines, repair shops and remanufacturing plants by themselves. If circular skills development truly becomes a priority in EU funds and national training systems, Europe’s resource vulnerability can become an industrial advantage. If not, even the best-drafted regulation will remain on paper.

Circular skills – frequently asked questions

What are circular skills?

Circular skills are the professional knowledge and practical abilities that keep products and materials in the economy for as long as possible. They include design for repair and recyclability, maintenance, repair, remanufacturing, waste collection and sorting, secondary raw-material production, and digital tracking of material flows, for example through digital product passports.

Why does the EESC link circular skills to strategic autonomy?

Because the EU depends entirely on imports for certain critical raw materials, such as heavy rare earths, and the Critical Raw Materials Act caps reliance on any single third country at 65%. Legislation alone will not meet that target: it takes people able to collect, sort, recover and process secondary raw materials at industrial scale.

What does the EESC propose to develop circular skills?

It proposes a circular economy competence framework, a skills passport modelled on Europass, modular ready-to-use curricula, stronger use of Erasmus+ and voluntary national training vouchers. It asks for circular skills to be prioritised under ESF+ and the European Competitiveness Fund in the next Multiannual Financial Framework, and for an EU skillset database to be created.

Will circular skills become mandatory in public procurement?

No. The EESC explicitly recommends that the EU use public procurement to encourage, rather than require, companies to demonstrate a workforce skilled in circular practices. The opinion is also advisory rather than binding: it sets out recommendations for EU institutions ahead of the forthcoming regulation and the next long-term EU budget.

Why do circular skills matter for waste management?

The opinion groups waste management with energy and water among the utility sectors facing a transition comparable to that of materials-intensive industries. Collection, sorting and recycling are where waste becomes secondary raw material, so a shortage of skilled workers at this stage translates directly into material lost from the loop.

🔗 Official sources and references: 👉

• European Economic and Social Committee: Building a Skilled Workforce for Strategic Autonomy: Advancing Circular Economy Preparedness (own-initiative opinion, CCMI/268, EESC-2026-02067-00-00-AC), adopted 21 October 2026. Opinion page
• EESC: Key points of the opinion (EESC-2026-02067-00-00-OKP) and record of the plenary proceedings (EESC-2026-02067-00-00-CR)
• Adelina Dabu: Circular skills: the workforce test for Europe’s strategic autonomy, EESC, 22 October 2026
• Circle Economy – Deloitte Netherlands: The Circularity Gap Report 2026: The Value Gap, 16 April 2026 (as cited in the opinion)

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