As productivity continues to increase, providing highly-specialised and certified-quality products becomes ever more important for boosting economic well-being, more so than mass low-cost production. Moreover, the increasing focus on the integrated use-value of products and services now offsets the emphasis on the exchange value - the price.

This development is particularly advantageous for European producers: our competitiveness relies on our ability to provide diverse, specialised products, rather than on competing on price against regions with more extended economies of scale.

The European Economic and Social Committee is organizing a hearing as part of its follow-up work on its opinion on ''A European retail sector fit for the 21st century'', which was adopted in December 2018. The event will take place on 27 June 2019. It is part of a series of follow-up hearings to be held in several EU Member States.

The main objective of the hearing will be to discuss the effectiveness and efficiency of EU retail policies and to collect valuable input and feedback from Polish stakeholders on the issue in order to find ways to improve these policies. Particular emphasis will be placed on the recommendations presented in the EESC opinion with a view to their implementation at national level.

In the framework of its own initiative opinion on "Blockchain and distributed ledger technology as an ideal infrastructure for Social Economy", the EESC organizes on 29 May 2019 a public hearing on "Blockchain: technology for the social economy 4.0".

The objective of the hearing will be to give the floor to experts in the field, but also to present case studies aiming at showing how Social Economy can benefit from this new technology.