The Belgian Presidency of the EU will have the task of leading Europe during a tough period of economic and social crisis which poses a particularly difficult challenge for the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty.
The European Economic and Social Committee is strongly engaged in this process. It will continue to assist the EU institutions by paying close attention to economic and social problems, following the "road map" for recovery that the Committee launched in March and the EESC biennial conference in Florence on "Education to combat social exclusion". In the context of these very serious problems, one area of work which will be at the core of our actions and reflections is the implementation of participatory democracy. As a body that catalyses the demands and needs of European civil society, the Committee must play its role to the full in order to make participatory democracy a concrete and more effective reality. Our Biennial Conference, which involved hundreds of civil society organisations at European and local level, was a very good example of how the new rules of the Lisbon Treaty are being applied in this field.
