Current legislation requires N2 vehicles to be equipped with speed‑limitation devices, a rule originally designed for heavy‑duty vehicles to ensure road safety and environmental protection. Electric vans, however, often fall into the N2 category solely due to their battery weight. The exemption aims to align electric vans with their fossil‑fuel equivalents and support the transition to cleaner transport.
The new European Grids Package seeks to strengthen and modernise the EU’s energy infrastructure, ensuring secure, affordable and increasingly clean energy flows across Member States. It introduces a more coordinated planning framework, accelerates permitting, and enhances investment to support a fully interconnected and future-proof European energy system.
The EESC underlines that artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmic management (AM) can improve the quality of employment and working conditions if they respect the human-in-control principle. They can strengthen occupational safety and health, enhance work organization, work-life balance and skills development. The EESC also draws attention to risks related to OSH, data use and underlines the importance of ensuring transparency, explainability and fairness in the use of AI and AM. Finally, the EESC underlines the central role of social dialogue and collective bargaining at all levels in this field.
Download — Tuairim ó CESE: Enhancing quality in employment and working conditions by introducing and promoting related tools (incl. AI) and strengthening social dialogue and collective bargaining
The Cyprus Presidency has asked the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) to draw up an exploratory opinion aimed at analysing how affordable housing initiatives can integrate measures to reduce energy costs for families and support vulnerable households.
The EESC welcomes the 2025 Strategic Foresight Report: Resilience 2.0, while underlining that future reports should also address radical disruptions. The EESC is uniquely placed to detect weak signals and underlying trends in strategic foresight and therefore its foresight-driven viewpoint should continuously feed into the Commission’s policy cycle. The EESC also calls for common, verifiable EU-wide metrics for socio-economic and institutional resilience. In this regard, the EESC is of the view that strategic foresight should also support sustainable and inclusive well-being as part of the European social model.
