Following the publication of the European Commission's Update to the New Industrial Strategy, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has been carrying out a series of activities to fulfil its role of representing the views of organised civil society. A first event in this process has been a conference held on 17 June 2021, from 2.30 to 6 p.m., on Updated industrial strategy: towards a more resilient and strategically autonomous EU industry?
Stepping stones to a level playing field in Europe
The Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) are the EU answer to updating rules for digital services. Both legislative proposals aim at fostering Europe's key political objective of digital sovereignty through unleashing the potential of our Digital Single Market and ensuring safe, fair, open and accountable digital services according to the European values.
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the Consultative Commission on Industrial Change (CCMI) believe that the present and future of critical raw materials resilience is of essential concern to EU's organised civil society. For this reason, and because the Commission's Action Plan represents a step forward by providing a clear roadmap with initiatives and actions to be taken at EU level, overall the EESC recommends that the European Parliament and the Council support this approach.
The corona crisis is a huge human and societal tragedy for Europeans and for people throughout the world. Tackling its diverse impacts requires a series of measures, from coping with the emergency stage and proceeding via recovery and rebuilding towards long-term success and stability. Businesses that manage to recover well and succeed are key to the recovery of the EU economy as a whole.
The corona crisis is changing the global economy daily, with the results still being uncertain. The crisis has hit all sectors, from services to industries and agriculture. The most serious problems have been encountered by SMEs and micro-entrepreneurs who have had their businesses disappear and are in a very critical situation.
To limit the economic and social damage caused by this critical situation, a series of measures is needed, extending from coping with the emergency stage towards recovery and rebuilding.
This brochure presents the EESC's opinions in the area of taxation and gives an overview of key recommendations. We believe that great efforts are needed to prevent aggressive tax planning behaviour by businesses and non-transparency by Member States to ensure equal treatment of firms and to promote European competitiveness for the benefit of all Europeans.
In this brochure, we have put together a series of semester-related opinions and an information report in which the EESC makes policy recommendations on the various elements of the European Semester.
This report provides a study of the retail sector, which is one of the biggest in Europe in terms of the number of enterprises active and individuals employed. The study aims to provide practical insights on revitalising small retailers in urban and rural areas. The underlying objective is achieved through identifying the main trends, challenges and opportunities faced by small retailers, and outlining what types of good practices have been put into place to support these enterprises in city-centres, including highlights on the situation of small retailers located in rural areas.
This Study aims at making a comprehensive overview of the EU State aid rules and their impact on SMEs in the period 2014-2018 with the goal to identify which policy issues create the greatest challenges for SMEs (incl. social partners and NGOs), and what are the best practices available to tackle the issues.
This study analyses the impact of changes in corporate tax on investment, growth, employment and public finance. It is based on both a review of existing theoretical and empirical literature and a new event study considering the economic impact of significant changes in corporate tax rates in developed economies between 1981 and 2014.
