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 — Tuairim ó CESE: Securing Europe’s medicine supply: envisioning a Critical Medicines Act
Improving Micro Small and Medium Enterprises’ (MSMEs) financial resilience is crucial to avoid unnecessary bankruptcies, loss of jobs and mitigate the impact of the past, ongoing and future crisis.
Download — Tuairim ó CESE: Strengthening MSMEs’ financial resilience and promoting second chance for entrepreneurs
The EU retail investment package aims to strengthen the legislative framework to ensure that retail investors are empowered to take more informed investment decisions that better correspond to their needs and objectives, and are adequately protected in the single market by a coherent regulatory framework.
Download — Tuairim ó CESE: Retail investment package
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 — Tuairim ó CESE: Energy policies and strategies in the Euro-Mediterranean region
The Report on Competition policy, published annually, provides detailed information on the most important policy and legislative initiatives, and on decisions adopted by the European Commission in application of EU competition law during the previous year.
Download — Tuairim ó CESE: Report on Competition Policy 2022
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 — Tuairim ó CESE: Next generation of own resources
Every year in February, the EESC adopts an opinion on Annual Sustainable Growth Survey, which the Commission usually presents at the end of November in the year before. The Committee works under tight deadlines, in anticipation of the referral, to finalise the opinion before the March Council discussion on the topic. To reinforce the Committee's impact throughout the entire European Semester, an own-initiative opinion with additional considerations is regularly produced by October taking into account the overall European Semester, which plays a central role in implementing the Recovery and Resilience Facility and is vital in current discussions about the review of the EU macro-economic governance framework.
Download — Tuairim ó CESE: Additional considerations on the Annual Sustainable Growth Survey 2023
