The EESC issues between 160 and 190 opinions and information reports a year.
It also organises several annual initiatives and events with a focus on civil society and citizens’ participation such as the Civil Society Prize, the Civil Society Days, the Your Europe, Your Say youth plenary and the ECI Day.
Here you can find news and information about the EESC'swork, including its social media accounts, the EESC Info newsletter, photo galleries and videos.
The EESC brings together representatives from all areas of organised civil society, who give their independent advice on EU policies and legislation. The EESC's326 Members are organised into three groups: Employers, Workers and Various Interests.
The EESC has six sections, specialising in concrete topics of relevance to the citizens of the European Union, ranging from social to economic affairs, energy, environment, external relations or the internal market.
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), at the request of the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU, has unveiled crucial recommendations aimed at bolstering social cohesion, managing debt and prioritising investments in healthcare and employment across Europe. The EESC expressed concern that tight budgets might slow down progress in fighting poverty and climate change.
The Civil Society Organisations' Group organised a photography exhibition in collaboration with the City of Culture of Galicia in the framework of its conference on EU food sovereignty: the role of agriculture, fisheries and consumers. The subject of the exhibition supported and complemented the Group's and the EESC's work on resilient and sustainable European food systems. The Group invited the Galician artist, Adrián Baúlde, to present parts of the series Mariscadoras.
The EESC has asked the forthcoming Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU to push forward with the proposal to make the Social Progress Protocol a binding legal instrument, which would help strengthen and preserve social rights in Europe
15 June 2023 - The Employers' Group of the European Economic and Social Committee today pushed through a counter-opinion to strongly voice its concern about adding a Social Progress Protocol that would fundamentally change the nature and functioning of the EU social market economy.
The EESC describes the Commission's proposals for strengthening social dialogue in Member States and the EU as both timely and necessary, but calls for additional steps. Action is needed on improving national consultations with the social partners, national and European collective bargaining coverage and the implementation of social partner agreements
The EESC proposed to make sure that the relevant European and national legislation is fully implemented and enforced so as to reduce precarious work and the prevalence of the associated mental health problems;
to adopt specific legislation on preventing psychosocial risks at EU level;
to combat identified work-related psychosocial risks at the source.
The EESC considers the Social Imbalance Procedure (SIP) an opportunity to enhance the coordination of national efforts to improve their social governance and reduce social inequalities within a country and between Member States
underlines that the SIP should be integrated into the European Semester, throughout its different phases
calls on the Commission and the Member States to consider making existing rules for funds allocation (including the ESIF, RRF and others) more flexible.
The Social Progress Protocol, proposed during the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE), gives precedence to social, workers' and trade union rights when they are in conflict with economic freedoms. However, while everyone agreed that social rights and economic freedoms can co-exist, support for making the protocol primary EU law is far from unanimous, with diverging views among the social partners and in the academic community, an EESC hearing confirmed
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) calls on the EU and Member States to implement more concrete measures to support the health, housing and financial needs of the growing number people taking on long-term caregiving responsibilities of a family member.