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.
Here you can find news and information about the EESC'swork, including its social media accounts, the EESC Info newsletter, photo galleries and videos.
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.
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.
EESC opinion: 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.
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.
EESC opinion: 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.
EESC opinion: 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.
EESC opinion: 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.
EESC opinion: 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.
EESC opinion: Revision of the toy safety directive