The EESC has renewed its request for an overhaul of the European semester, calling for an EU regulation to make civil society involvement in the cycle mandatory.

In an opinion debated and adopted at its April plenary session, the EESC stressed that economic reforms should be based on social factors and no longer solely on economic indicators. It also stressed that the process of country-specific recommendations must also be reviewed to encourage Member States to take the lead in implementing them.

The European semester is the annual six-month cycle of economic, social and fiscal policy coordination between the Member States, and also monitors the national recovery and resilience plans (RRPs). While it has played an important role since its introduction in 2011, the semester has also shown significant weaknesses.

In this opinion, the EESC renews its call for reform of the European semester in order to strengthen its transparency and democracy, the involvement of organised civil society and the effectiveness of its operation. The EESC recommends:

• reviewing and complementing existing systems of indicators, and making them consistent with each other so as to help improve evaluation procedures;
• having country-specific recommendations, one of the main instruments of the semester, cover a period of three years, with annual evaluations and reviews, and linking their implementation and funding to the EU budget, as the most appropriate incentive to ensure compliance;
• involving the social partners and civil society organisations through a structured formal consultation procedure and a specific body legally entrusted with this task. Existing national economic and social councils should also play a relevant role in this process;
• setting out the principles and general characteristics of structured and permanent involvement of organised civil society in the various stages of the European semester in an EU regulation.

Full opinion (tk)