In this opinion, the EESC suggests several changes to the Commission's proposal, to make the text fully compliant with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Namely, the Committee suggest that if the adoption of a legal measure against a vulnerable person clearly violates human rights and international law, a Member State should be obliged not recognise such a measure.
Download — Dictamen del CESE: International protection of adults
This initiative reports on the application and impact of EU rules on payment services, as required by the review clause of the Second Payment Services Directive and announced in the Commission´s retail payments strategy of 2020.
Download — Dictamen del CESE: Open finance and payments
Vulnerable groups pay a proportionally higher price of the consequences of climate change although they contribute less to it. In this opinion, the EESC calls for the development of a comprehensive EU political and social strategy to be able to respond proactively to climate emergency, stressing on the social aspects of the just transition. To do so, the EESC recommends, among other measures, the EU Social Climate Fund and the EU Climate Adjustment Fund be supplemented with additional instruments.
Download — Dictamen del CESE: The climate crisis and its effect on vulnerable groups
The Commission’s aim for this non-legislative initiative is to “propose tools on developing open human-centric virtual worlds,” according to the 2023 work program .
Download — Dictamen del CESE: Initiative on virtual worlds
The EESC is a fervent defender of multilateralism and a rules-based world order. Its External Relations Section deals with many topics relevant to the broad spectrum covered by the United Nations and its specialised agencies, while many EESC opinions refer to core international principles and regularly cite the United Nations.
Download — Dictamen del CESE: Strengthening Multilateralism and core international principles for a rules-based order in a rapidly changing world – The importance of Civil Society contribution to the UN system
Climate diplomacy frames climate change as an external action policy topic and highlights the need to integrate climate objectives and address climate related risks at the highest diplomatic level and across all policy areas. Through this opinion we build on our previous work in this area and also explore practical aspects of the EU climate diplomacy.
Download — Dictamen del CESE: EU Climate Diplomacy
The Covid 19-pandemic has drawn attention to the role of the pharmaceutical industry and to production, availability and affordability of medicines and medicinal products on the European market.
Dependency on critical ingredients, such as active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), became obvious when China and India limited exports. According to current data, up to 80% of APIs used in Europe and about 40% of finished medicines sold in Europe come from China or India. The European Union's increasing dependence on API supplies has led to a partial loss of capability to manufacture active substances independently, which poses a potential threat to public health in the countries of the European Union.
Download — Dictamen del CESE: Securing Europe’s medicine supply: envisioning a Critical Medicines Act
Increasing tensions between geopolitical blocs, supply chain problems and the need to respond to the challenges of climate change, rising resource consumption and social imbalances are now key areas of activity in European industrial policy.
Download — Dictamen del CESE: Industrial Policy as an instrument to reduce dependencies and boost an EU market for green products in the resource and energy-intensive industries (REEIs)
The main objective of this opinion is to deliver, eight years after its official launch, an EESC assessment of the state of play of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a soft-power tool through which China has assumed a new strategic geopolitical position on the world chessboard. In this context, the EESC needs to investigate what impact the BRI can have on the EU's policies such as twin transition, open strategic autonomy, access to critical technologies and critical raw materials, security and defence, TEN-T network, foreign direct investments, EU screening, etc.
Download — Dictamen del CESE: Global battle of offers – from the Chinese Belt and Road initiative to the EU Global Gateway: the vision of European organised civil society
One of the main conclusions of the 8th Cohesion Report is that although cohesion and convergence among regions in the European Union has improved, there are still remaining gaps especially in less developed regions related with their territorial characteristics. EU islands, mountain areas and sparsely populated areas still face many challenges on their growth and income and disparities exist.
In these regions, there are still a lot of gaps in terms of employment and investment, social exclusion is evident and gender disparities have not diminished.
Download — Dictamen del CESE: Main challenges faced by EU islands, and mountainous and sparsely populated areas
The Toy Safety Directive sets out the safety requirements that toys must meet before they can be marketed in the EU. This initiative aims to protect children better against risks in toys, particularly from chemicals. It builds on work such as the chemicals strategy for sustainability, and on an evaluation of the current toy safety rules completed in 2020. At the same time, it aims to strengthen the Single Market for toys.
Download — Dictamen del CESE: Revision of the toy safety directive
The Mediterranean region is strongly exposed to climate change and faces fast-rising temperatures, water scarcity and coastal erosion. Energy transition plays an important role in climate change mitigation on both shores of the Mediterranean.
Download — Dictamen del CESE: Energy policies and strategies in the Euro-Mediterranean region
As committed during the negotiations on the long-term EU budget 2021-2027, the European Commission has on 20 June 2023 completed its proposal for a next generation of own resources. The package includes a new temporary statistical own resource based on company profits. The Commission also proposes to adjust the own resources proposals based on the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) compared to the original proposals from December 2021.
Download — Dictamen del CESE: Next generation of own resources
