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.
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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.
Health, education and economic measures imposed by EU Member States during the COVID crisis have largely failed to protect Roma communities by not taking into account their extreme poverty and by not giving them priority in public health and vaccination strategies
Having learnt from the shortcomings of the previous EU Roma frameworkover the past decade, the European Commission is determined to achieve the headline targets of the new Roma strategic framework, closing the gap of discrimination and socio-economic exclusion by at least half by 2030. However, the role of the Member States in delivering tangible results is pivotal. Without effective national strategies and pragmatic measures, the new framework risks failing in the same manner as its predecessor.
In June, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) held a hearing focusing on combating discrimination in the employment and recruitment of Roma, which revealed that the current strategies for fostering their inclusion in the labour market were largely failing.
Europe's largest minority, numbering more than ten million people, continue to be discriminated against and marginalised in many Member States of the European Union. Human rights NGOs and EU policymakers who gathered at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) warned that in many cases police continue to use ethnic profiling against Roma people. A public hearing on "Addressing anti-gypsyism in ethnic profiling practices" was part of the third EU Roma Week, held by the EU institutions in Brussels from April 8 to 12.
"The European Economic and Social Committee considers that the participation of Roma at all stages of decision-making is essential for achieving effective policies that can make a real difference to their situation within the EU. However, the tools available today are not sufficient in this regard"