Extraordinary meeting of the Diversity Europe Group in the framework of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU
Meeting
9.30 - 13.00 - Ljubljana & Brussels in hybrid format
The event will take place both in Brussels and in Ljubljana in hybrid form. Registration for external participants will be open on this page until 25 November 2021.
To deliver on the European Green Deal, the European Commission will have to rethink policies in a variety of fields, not least in the agri-food sector. The initiatives linked to agri-food promotion, the renewal of the CAP and the "Farm to the fork" strategy will transform our current reality to achieve a more socially sustainable, environmentally friendly and healthy food production. To make this socio-economic transition a success, it is essential to involve all stakeholders in the reorganization of the European food markets.
The EESC Employers' Group believes that we should provide entrepreneurs with the adequate conditions so that they can thrive and create innovative and decent jobs in a recovering economy. The EESC Employers' Group can play a critical role in creating an enabling and encouraging business environment also for the agri-food sector that meets the challenges and seizes the opportunities of sustainable development.
During the ongoing COVID pandemic, the EU’s agri-food sector has shown resilience and continues to play a key role in providing Europeans with high quality and safe food. The Employers' Group has acknowledged the crucial role of the agri-food sector also in its position paper "Help businesses survive the Corona crisis" by stating that all actors in the EU food supply chain deserve strong support on the European and national levels, while food security should remain one of the top EU priorities for the future.
As the role and competitiveness of the agri-food sector are of utmost importance to employers and businesses across the EU, the EESC Employers' Group has organised the debate with the EU Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski planned for 13th of July 2021 at 14:30 to discuss about the future of the European food markets.
This online public hearing will discuss how to transform the targets proposed in the Action Plan for the development of EU organic production into on-the-ground strategies related to organic production and consumption.
High-level conference on "The Multiannual Financial Framework post 2020: Challenges and opportunities" with the participation of representatives from the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council presidency.
The Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) has been the main framework for relations between the continents of Europe and Africa since 2007. Its goal is to develop a shared vision of the main global issues whilst simultaneously strengthening cooperation in a broad range of areas such as development, governance, human rights, trade, regional integration, food security and migration. To this end, meetings of EU-African economic and social stakeholders are held on a regular basis.
This public hearing will discuss the current state of multilateral trade negotiations on agriculture. After the Nairobi agreement of export competition, some progress could be made on the areas of market access (tariffs and quotas) and, to some extent, on domestic support.
This hearing on the CAP post-2020 was organised jointly by the Agriculture and Forestry Committee of the Finnish Parliament and the NAT section of the EESC. The 2013 reform of the CAP is currently being implemented and the CAP simplification exercise is also underway. The EESC wants to be proactive in preparing for the next reform of the CAP which relates to the period after 2020. It was of utmost importance to make an in-depth analysis of the current CAP and the result of the previous reform.
The first Cork Declaration, adopted on 9 November 1996, forthrightly requested "a fairer balance" of public spending and investments between rural and urban areas. In the new Cork 2.0 Declaration adopted on 6 September 2016, there is only one concrete proposal with the potential to have a meaningful impact: the so called "rural proofing" whose aim would be to "systematically review other macro and sectorial policies through a rural lens".
On 9 November 2016 the EESC and CoR organised a conference on balanced territorial development entitled "Cork+20: leaving rural areas behind is no longer an option". At stake was the European Commission's new rural development strategy, which would normally have to be inspired by the new Cork 2.0 Declaration that has been co-signed by stakeholders at the Cork conference on 5-6 September 2016.
Now is the time to put the Cork 2.0 Declaration into action.
The EESC opinion is the organized civil society's contribution to the follow-up of the Conference. At the public hearing on 3 May we discussed concrete actions for implementing the measures of the declaration. The trend towards a systematic prioritarization of urban areas across the whole set of EU sectoral policies must be reversed!
The EESC hearing on 14 February 2017 was an opportunity for all people who were interested in rural issues to meet, present work in progress and exchange ideas and knowledge – and get inspired by examples of successful projects and initiatives in other rural communities. Together we thought of better ways to empower the rural communities to play their full part in addressing vital policy areas such as food security, renewable energy, environmental protection and job creation.
