The Belgian presidency asked the EESC to provide an opinion on how to tackle poverty through social innovation and the development of the social economy. The fight against poverty and social exclusion must take into account the numerous dimensions of the concept of poverty that affect access to employment, education, healthcare, housing, food, mobility, digital tools, energy and culture, among other things. A cross-cutting approach to poverty is therefore essential in order to ensure social inclusion. Even though all economic actors are involved in the fight against poverty, it is up to the state to exercise its full responsibility in this area. The social economy contributes to this fight in an organic and cross-cutting way, through its diverse activities and social orientation.
The Commission’s aim for this non-legislative initiative is to “propose tools on developing open human-centric virtual worlds,” according to the 2023 work program .
Download — Mišljenje EGSO-a: Initiative on virtual worlds
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.
Download — Mišljenje EGSO-a: 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
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.
Download — Mišljenje EGSO-a: Global battle of offers – from the Chinese Belt and Road initiative to the EU Global Gateway: the vision of European organised civil society
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 — Mišljenje EGSO-a: Additional considerations on the Annual Sustainable Growth Survey 2023
