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The purpose of the conference is to raise awareness, across the EU, on how multi-stakeholder actions can boost the achievement of the SDGs, to identify success factors, and to develop follow-up actions for upscaling these to EU-level.

The specific conference objectives are:

• Firstly, to identify and share experiences in relation to national instruments and initiatives designed to foster responsible business conduct in international value chains, and to explore which initiatives could possibly be scaled up to EU-level.
• Secondly, to higlight the importance of improved and sustained coherence between relevant internal and external EU policies - which is paramount to the effective implementation of initiatives on responsible business conduct, as the replication of a variety of initiatives might impact both the EU internal market (e.g. calling for guidance how tension with competition law can be avoided) and the EU’s external policies, including trade, development, and environmental policies.
• Thirdly, to explore how these existing approaches can feed into and complement the work of the European Commission's Multistakeholder Platform on SDG implementation efforts across sectors, as announced in Next steps for a sustainable European future, November 2016.

Finally yet importantly, the concept of the conference dovetails with the idea to highlight the role of civil society and industry organisations in contributing to the achievement of the SDGs.

The conference is co-organised with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER).

During the meeting, the members of the Domestic Advisory Group (DAG) of the EU composed of representatives of employers' organisations, trade unions and various interest group discussed the mandate of the EU DAG, working methods, reporting procedures and cooperation with other civil society organisations, as well as exchanged views on its rules of procedure. Additionally, the members of the EU DAG exchanged views with representatives of the European Commission on matters related to the implementation of the trade and sustainable development title of the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA).

During the meeting, the Chair of the EU DAG under the new mandate was elected. The Group also discussed its mandate, working methods, reporting procedures and cooperation with other civil society organisations, as well as exchanged views on its rules of procedure and assess possible amendments . Moreover, the EU DAG discussed with representatives of the EC matters related to the implementation of the EU-Korea FTA under three pillars of sustainable development.

The 12th meeting of the EU Advisory Group for the EU-Central America Association Agreement took place on 30 May in Brussels.  Please click on the programme tab to consult the topics on the agenda.

During the 8th meeting of the Domestic Advisory Group for the EU-Colombia, Peru and Ecuador FTA the new President and Vice-Chairs were elected under the new mandate. Members participated in debriefing on past activities and exchanged views on a possible work programme for the new mandate. DG TRADE provided the members with the latest information on the FTA.

In recent years, EU trade policy has become a true issue of debate in the civil society at national level: that shows the need to bring trade policy closer to EU citizens. EU Member States have different existing national structures, procedures and consultation methods, as well as ratification processes; however, citizens from most countries not always seem to be able to fully express their voices in national debates on trade policy. The objective of the event was that of a) assessing and examining the different kinds of consultation procedures that exist in the Member States; b) exploring how civil society and consultative structures, wherever they exist, are informed or consulted on negotiations and implementation of trade agreements, and c) promoting the experience of the EESC in the domain of the EU trade policy.