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The Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy delivers on the vision set out in President Ursula von der Leyen's Political Guidelines. It sets out the economic and employment policy strategy for the EU, placing sustainability and social inclusion at the heart of the EU's economic policymaking, in line with the priorities enshrined in the European Green Deal, the Commission's new growth strategy. It aims to ensure that Europe remains the home of the world's most advanced welfare systems, becomes the first climate-neutral continent and is a vibrant hub of innovation and competitive entrepreneurship. It will give Europe the tools to strive for more when it comes to social fairness and prosperity. More broadly, the sustainable growth strategy will help the EU and its Member States achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which the Commission is integrating into the European Semester for the first time.

On April 23, eight Swedish cities – Enköping, Gothenburg, Lund, Malmö, Stockholm, Umeå, Uppsala and Växjö – took a major step forward in the climate transition. Within the framework of the strategic innovation program Viable Cities, they are now inspirers and blowtorches for other cities, in Sweden and the world, so as many cities as possible will reach climate neutrality by 2030.
Cities and their partners will now accelerate and develop systems and processes within Viable Cities to achieve increased economic, social and environmental sustainability in line with the global sustainability goals. The eight cities yesterday signed a letter of intent, which is an important step in the process of formulating a Climate City Contract. In short, it is a question of changing how we finance climate change in order to speed it up.

This article explores the use and added value of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and indicators in the budgeting process. Several countries have announced in their voluntary national reviews (VNRs) their intention to use the SDGs in their budgetary processes, but few have specified why it would be relevant to do so, or how it could be implemented. Based on nine case studies conducted through interviews, we found that SDG budgeting is still in its infancy. We nevertheless identified four ways in which countries are starting to integrate the SDGs into budgeting processes. Most of the countries we studied either map their budgets against the SDGs or include qualitative reporting in their main budget document. Less often, countries use the SDGs to improve their budget performance evaluation system or as a management tool for resource allocation. Most of the countries follow a technical approach. Only rarely are the SDGs used politically or referenced in the budgetary debate.