The EESC considers the five missions as high priorities for the EU and highlights that the competitiveness of Europe's industry is very important for their achievement.
At the same time, the EESC underlines the importance of considering the impact on EU citizens and encourages the Commission to strongly link activities to social policies and the European Pillar of Social Rights, taking in particular into account the special needs of elderly and vulnerable EU citizens.
The EESC strongly supports the idea of empowering 150 climate benchmark regions throughout Europe and therefore strongly recommends increasing the portion of the EU regional budgets earmarked for R&D from the current figure of 5% to a minimum of 10%.
The EESC considers following five additional challenges and missions to also be very important for Europe:
On 16 July 2021 the Commission adopted its proposal for a Council Recommendation on ‘A Pact for Research and Innovation in Europe' to support the implementation of national European Research Area (ERA) policies.
Download — Mišljenje EGSO-a: Pact for Research and Innovation in Europe
The EESC welcomes the Commission initiative for the strategy on business taxation in the 21st century. The EESC strongly supports and appreciates the fact that the Commission is aligning its work with the international discussions and agreements and encourages the Commission to pursue its Action Plan for Fair and Simple Taxation Supporting the Recovery Strategy. The EESC is calling for uniform and globally concerted and coordinated implementation of Pillars 1 and 2 of the OECD agreement.
Download — Mišljenje EGSO-a: Business Taxation for the 21st Century
The upcoming French Presidency of the Council of the European Union asked the EESC to prepare an opinion on how the industrial ecosystems identified by the Commission will contribute to the EU's strategic autonomy and the well-being of its citizens.
Download — Mišljenje EGSO-a: How will given industrial ecosystems contribute to the strategic autonomy of the EU and the wellbeing of Europeans?
The proposal builds on 2030 Digital Compass, in which the Commission laid out the vision for a successful digital transformation of Europe's economy and society by the end of the decade. It introduces now a robust governance framework to reach the digital targets in the form of a Path to the Digital Decade.
Download — Mišljenje EGSO-a: Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the 2030 Policy Programme “Path to the Digital Decade”
The EESC adopted unanimously in September 2020 the opinion "SME strategy". Amongst its main conclusions were the plead to the Commission to draw up a "Next Generation SME Strategy". Unfortunately, in its 2021 Work Program, the European Commission chose to commit to an update of the Industrial, but not of the SME Strategy. The objectives of this follow-up opinion are the following: present the SME position on how to channel in the best way the unprecedented financial support, coming from the MFF 2021-2027, Next Generation EU and Recovery and Resilience Facility Mechanism; identify and respond to the difficulties SMEs face when accessing the single market and generate ideas on how to use the COVID-19 crisis as a driver for change and catalyst of the transition of the SMEs towards sustainable and digital economy.
Download — Mišljenje EGSO-a: Next Generation SME Strategy – Enhancing Effective and Swift Delivery
