European missions

EESC opinion: European missions
  • The EESC considers the five missions as high priorities for the EU and highlights that the competitiveness of Europe's industry is very important for their achievement.
  • At the same time, the EESC underlines the importance of considering the impact on EU citizens and encourages the Commission to strongly link activities to social policies and the European Pillar of Social Rights, taking in particular into account the special needs of elderly and vulnerable EU citizens.
  • The EESC strongly supports the idea of empowering 150 climate benchmark regions throughout Europe and therefore strongly recommends increasing the portion of the EU regional budgets earmarked for R&D from the current figure of 5% to a minimum of 10%.
  • The EESC considers following five additional challenges and missions to also be very important for Europe:
  1. keep up with the USA and Asia in global competition in the areas of research, technology and innovation;
  2. cope with the challenges linked to the EU's ageing society;
  3. define strategies for the successful integration of the high number of migrants coming into the EU;
  4. improve emergency preparedness;
  5. cope with the needs of patients with non-communicable diseases impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially those who suffer from cardio-vascular disease.