The EESC's engagement with civil society organisations in Russia is governed by the five guiding principles for EU-Russia relations agreed between EU foreign ministers and the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. One of these guiding principles is "support for people-to-people contacts".
Dialogue and the exchange of experiences between civil society representatives from the EU and Russia contribute in a significant way to the continued implementation of the EU-Russia Strategic Partnership. The EESC has adopted a two-stranded approach to its relations with Russian civil society in order to engage with as wide a range of civil society representatives as possible. On the one hand, it maintains relations with the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, its official Russian counterpart, and organises – amongst other things – annual joint seminars on topics of interest to civil society on both sides. The EESC's other partner is the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum, which brings together a different set of civil society organisations.
The EU-Russia Follow-up Committee is an internal EESC body, which acts as a steering group, and is responsible for developing and maintaining relations and organising meetings and joint seminars with civil society in Russia.
The aim of the hearing is to bring together experts, civil society representatives and decision-makers from national and European institutions, think tanks and volunteering organisations, who will present their views on the availability and need for such statistical data. Based on the findings of the hearing, the EESC will draw up an own-initiative opinion on the same topic, to be presented later in the course of 2013.
Suite aux manifestations en Ukraine et aux répercussions que cela aura sur les relations externes de l'UE, une délégation du Comité se rendra en Ukraine les 12 et 13 décembre 2013.
On 28 May 2014 the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) in collaboration with the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) will organise a regional briefing and consultation on Sustainable Development Goals and the UN High-Level Political Forum on sustainable development. The event will provide briefing on latest news and developments from the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals and give regional level Major Groups and other stakeholders the opportunity to contribute with their priorities and offer their regional perspectives.
On 3 February 2015, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) will hold the concluding event of its project on Better inclusion of the Roma community through civil society initiatives – final conference
The members of the study group preparing the opinion on EU Arctic Policy to address globally emerging interests in the region – a view of civil society organised a public hearing on 31 January 2013 in Rovaniemi, Finland to discuss with the representatives of the civil society the EU's interests and priorities in the region which wins emerging interest among the global actors, in such areas as energy, transport, with serious consequences for the environment and the inhabitants.
Minimum income schemes are important tools to combat poverty and social exclusion, since they ensure personal security, play a significant role in redistributing wealth and guarantee more solidarity and social justice. This hearing will reflect on a better measurement of poverty and on the problems of adopting a European minimum income scheme. It will bring together experts and people involved in advocacy work to contribute to the EESC opinion.
Evictions remain a serious problem across Europe and the input session will draw the attention to similarities between evictions in different kind of countries.
The session will help raise awareness of the issues, and allow for interchange between Roma organizations across Europe and is part of the continuous work of the EESC to bring attention to Roma issues. This will also be an opportunity for the EESC to deepen its work on evictions, following the showing of a film on Roma evictions in Italy ("River Memories") followed by a debate on this issue.
The objective of the meeting is to access the development of the Northern Dimension initiative in particular in the field of transport and logistics, environment and culture and to increase public awareness regarding civil society participation in this initiative.
ESC hearing on " Investment Protection and ISDS in EU Trade and Investment Agreements". The hearing will gather civil society representatives who will present their position towards investment protection and Investor to State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions in the current process of elaboration of the EU investment policy, which was added as an exclusive competence of the EU since the Lisbon Treaty.
The EESC and the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum are organising their 2nd Joint meeting. The objective of the meeting is to discuss themes of common interest for the EU and Russian civil society. On the agenda this year will be questions such as the restrictive legislation for civil society development in Russia, the role of media in influencing social and political processes, trans-border corruption and the impact of tensions in the EU-Russia relations on the EU and Russian societies.
