EESC - European Economic and Social Committee

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) is a European Union consultative body, set up in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome. It is made up of representatives of organisations active in various areas of economic and social life in EU member states, including business, trade unions, farmers, the professions, consumers and the voluntary sector, all known collectively as 'the organised civil society'. The Committee’s main task is to advise the EU’s three major institutions: the European Commission, the Council of the EU and the European Parliament, through delivering formal opinions on the European Commission’s legislative proposals and on EU policy in general.
Thus, the Committee ensures the active support and participation of organised civil society all over the EU to European governance and decision-making. Its strength lies in its members, who bring together a vast range of interests, knowledge and competences drawn from their diverse areas of work. The essential contribution of EESC members to the EU policy-making process comes from being constantly in touch with grassroots, with those who will be most affected by EU regulation.
The Committee also plays a significant role in informing civil society organisations of the impact of the EU on their areas of activity, and in providing channels to raise their views and interests with the EU institutions.
The EESC's role was successively reinforced by the Single European Act (1986), the Maastricht Treaty (1992), the Amsterdam Treaty (1997) - which enabled the Committee to be consulted by the European Parliament, the Treaty of Nice (2001) – which emphasized the identity of the Committee, that "shall consist of representatives of organisations of employers, of the employed, and of other parties representative of civil society, notably in socioeconomic, civic, professional and cultural areas", and the Treaty of Lisbon (2007), that makes dialogue with civil society mandatory, extends mandatory consultations into new areas, like sport, energy and research, strenghtens EESC links with the Parliament and introduces the European Citizens' Initiative.

Mission

Committed to the building of Europe, the EESC contributes to strengthening the democratic legitimacy and effectiveness of the European Union by enabling civil society organisations from the Member States to express their views at European level. It fulfils three key missions:
- helping to ensure that European policies and legislation fit better with economic, social and civic circumstances on the ground, by assisting the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the European Commission, making use of EESC members' experience and representativeness, dialogue and efforts to secure consensus serving the general interest;
- promoting the development of a more participatory European Union which is more in touch with popular opinion, by acting as an institutional forum representing, informing, expressing the views of and securing dialogue with organised civil society;
- promoting the values on which European integration is founded and advancing, in Europe and across the world, the cause of democracy and participatory democracy, as well as the role of civil society organisations.

Membership

The 344 EESC members are drawn from the whole range of civil society organisations across the 27 EU Member States. The number of seats that each country has on the Committee is laid down in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and varies according to the size of population, although it is not directly proportional. Germany, France, Italy and the UK have the largest representations, with 24 members each. Malta, with the smallest population, has 5 seats. Breakdown by country
The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Article 300) states that the Committee "shall consist of representatives of organisations of employers, of the employed, and of other parties representative of civil society, notably in socioeconomic, civic, professional and cultural areas "
Members are nominated by national governments, after broad consultation with all the relevant civil society organisations to ensure that nominees have the full support of the people they represent, and appointed, in a personal capacity, by the Council of the EU for a renewable 5-year term of office. Once the Council confirms the appointments, members become independent of national administrations and are free to work on behalf of the organisations and people they represent.
Following the organisation they represent, EESC members belong to one of three groups: Employers (Group I), Workers (Group II) and Diversity Europe (Group III). Their task is to give opinions setting out the Committee's views on EU issues to the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament. They also keep their home organisations directly briefed on legislative projects being prepared at European level.

Organisation

Every two-and-a-half years the Committee elects a President and two Vice-presidents chosen from each of the three groups in rotation. The President is responsible for ensuring that the Committee's work is carried out effectively. From the two Vice-presidents, one is responsible for communication policy, the other for budgetary matters.
On the same occasion, the plenary assembly of the Committee also elects a Bureau made up of 39 members, including the presidents of the three groups and six sections and one member from each Member State. The bureau's main task is to organise and coordinate the work of the EESC's various bodies and to lay down policy guidelines for this work.
The Committee's members belong to three groups:
- Employers (Group I),
- Workers (Group II) and
- Diversity Europe (Group III)

and six sections, for:

- Economic and Monetary Union and Economic and Social Cohesion,
- Single Market, Production and Consumption,
- Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society,
- Employment, Social Affairs and Citizenship,
- Agriculture, Rural Development and the Environment,
- External Relations.
A Consultative Commission on Industrial Change and four Observatories - for the Single Market, the Sustainable Development, the Labour Market and the Lisbon Strategy - has been also set up to work in these areas.
The full Committee meets in plenary sessions nine times a year. It adopts opinions by simple majority (the largest proportion of those voting), before forwarding them to the Council of the EU, the European Commission and the Parliament.
The members, organised in groups, sections and observatories are assisted in their work by the Secretariat of the EESC, managed by the Secretary-General, who works with two deputy Secretaries-General and five directorates.
The EESC maintains regular links with regional and national economic and social councils throughout the European Union, through exchanges of information, joint discussions on specific issues, and joint conferences. Constant links are also maintained with economic and social interest groups in a number of non-member countries and groups of countries. For this purpose, joint consultative and follow-up committees, contact groups and round tables have been set up with countries in the European Economic Area, Turkey, ACP, India, Latin America, Eastern Neighbourhood, West Balkans, Euromed, China, Croatia, FYROM, Brasil, Japan. Furthermore, delegations have been set up to follow up relations with other countries and regions such as the Mercosur and Chile.

Working Methods

The EU institutions can request the EESC to give opinions on specific legislative proposals and policy communications, in particular in the areas required by the EU Treaties - mandatory opinions.

The institutions can also request, upstream of the legislative process, an exploratory opinion in an area of particular importance to organised civil society, to inform the process of framing EU policies and planning their implementation.

The Committee can also decide to draw up an own-initiative opinion on any topic related to the EU or its policies which it considers important. It often uses these to draw attention to issues which have not yet been taken up by the institutions.

Although the Committee’s opinions are adopted by the EESC as a whole, the preparatory work is undertaken in the six specialist sections covering most of the EU’s fields of activity, the four Observatories or the specialised Consultative Committee on Industrial Change (CCMI), established in key fields of interest, to stimulate debate amongst civil society organisations and with EU institutions, and better assess the impact of policies on stakeholders - those parts of society most affected by such policies.

The sections, together with the Observatories and the CCMI, are composed of members with specific interests and experience. Section opinions are drafted by working groups made of between 3 and 18 members, including a rapporteur. Rapporteurs may call on outside experts for advice (a maximum of four outside experts, one appointed by the rapporteur and one by each of the three groups), and make contact with other institutions and with stakeholders to maximise the impact of the opinion.

The Committee produces some 200 opinions a year (of which approximately 15% are issued on its own-initiative). As an example, in 2009 the EESC issued 215, of which 17% were own-initiative opinions and 11% - exploratory opinions. All the opinions are forwarded to the Community's decision-making bodies and then published in the Official Journal of the European Communities.

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This study aims to outline the most significant features of the national economic and social councils of the Member States of the European Union in the light of the doctoral thesis defended by the author at the Catholic University of Murcia (Spain).

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