launch the proposal for a comprehensive European Action Plan on Rare Diseases (APRD) with SMART targets that can be achieved by 2030 to enable the diagnosis of rare disease patients within one year;
set up a Steering Group for the European APRD composed of experts from Member States, EURORDIS members and the EESC to ensure coordination and cooperation, monitoring and supervision of the APRD;
encourage agreements with Member States on the content, updating, application and monitoring of national plans for RD.
welcomes the proposal for updated guidelines on employment policies, aimed at fostering a competitive and sustainable economy, reflecting new labour market needs;
highlights the importance of upward convergence and of enhancing the European Semester’s role in coordinated economic policy responses;
stresses the need to strengthen social partners' roles through social dialogue and collective bargaining and the involvement of civil society in employment reforms and policy-making.
notes that the EU and Member States shall aim to promote a high level of employment, improve living and working conditions and achieve proper social protection, including under comparable conditions, for the self-employed;
encourages the EU and Member States, within their respective competences and in keeping with national practices, to adapt social protection systems to cover non-standard work, ensuring sufficient benefits for decent work and a decent life for all workers;
calls for Member States to shift the focus of social protection from workers alone to all Europeans, offering a minimum income for those unable to work, while promoting a return to employment for those who can work.
Across a wide range of issues, including employment, pension systems, climate change, health and care services, and political participation, both younger and older generations feel inadequately represented in the current policy responses. This is contributing to growing political disillusionment and jeopardising the cohesion of European societies.
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), has adopted an opinion supporting the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the open labour market, calling for the promotion of measures and policies (including the setup of a joint fund between Member States) that would buttress these efforts.
An ageing society faces distinct challenges compared to a society with a more balanced age distribution. Upholding the right to age with dignity, along with a life-cycle approach is essential to addressing these challenges;
The EESC’s proposals for achieving more sustainable societal development include: striving for higher birth rates, exploiting the full potential of the labour market, making work pay by having high-quality, well-paid and productive jobs, improving working conditions, reforming pension and care systems to ensure accessibility for everyone, enhancing legal migration pathways to attract in particular foreign talent supported by bold integration measures, working towards upward regional and social cohesion and analysing the factors driving people to leave the EU;
The EESC recommends that the European Commissioner for Demography be supported by an appropriate structure within the European Commission, and that a European agency for demography be set up to ensure research and statistics in this field, while at the same time ensuring collaboration with and sufficient financing for existing agencies like Cedefop and Eurofound. This would facilitate the integration of demographic consideration in all relevant policy areas and impact assessments.
believes that Member States and higher education institutions (HEIs) should enhance quality, fairness, equality, and social inclusion in higher education, adapting recommendations to their contexts;
urges the EU to safeguard academic freedom and institutional autonomy;
supports fostering joint programmes among HEIs within and beyond European University Alliance projects, ensuring quality assurance and including all relevant stakeholdersin their implementation;
emphasises the need for broad collaboration among stakeholders to effectively implement the initiatives, particularly highlighting the fundamental values of student and staff participation following the Bologna Process.
underlines that youth participation mechanisms need to be transparent for every stakeholder and that the interests and concerns of young people need to be considered at each stage of the policy-making cycle;
points at the importance of having monitoring and dissemination strategies in place in each youth participation mechanism to inform young people of the impact that their participation has had, including in EU Youth Dialogue (EUYD) processes;
suggests that information on EUYD outcomes should be compiled at pre-agreed intervals and focus on all cycles of the EUYD to be able to track policy and other outcomes linked to particular EUYD cycles.
