The EESC issues between 160 and 190 opinions and information reports a year.
It also organises several annual initiatives and events with a focus on civil society and citizens’ participation such as the Civil Society Prize, the Civil Society Days, the Your Europe, Your Say youth plenary and the ECI Day.
Here you can find news and information about the EESC'swork, including its social media accounts, the EESC Info newsletter, photo galleries and videos.
The EESC brings together representatives from all areas of organised civil society, who give their independent advice on EU policies and legislation. The EESC's326 Members are organised into three groups: Employers, Workers and Various Interests.
The EESC has six sections, specialising in concrete topics of relevance to the citizens of the European Union, ranging from social to economic affairs, energy, environment, external relations or the internal market.
The EESC supports the Commission's proposal which will allow for the creation of the European Foundation (FE), for which it has called already in 2010 in its own-initiative opinion (INT/498). The EESC recommends adopting the proposal without delay. As an optional instrument, FE will give the opportunity to foundations opting for the statute to work in each EU country without the need to create local structures, provided that the foundation will be recognised in the country of origin of its creation.
The EESC considers that this issue needs to be analysed very thoroughly and placed within an EU framework taking into consideration the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. Special emphasis must be placed on empowering, informing and educating children, families and teachers. The EESC calls on advertisers and sponsors to adopt and apply the highest levels of protection of children's rights.
EESC opinion: Advertising / young people and children
The EESC feels that the triple objective of the Europe 2020 strategy, i.e., smart, sustainable and inclusive-cohesive growth, is generally appropriate; however, in order to achieve it, a well-balanced macroeconomic policy mix and structural reforms together with more and better instruments are needed. The EU needs to show that it has the necessary political will and a specific vision of substantially closer integration. All the funds and programmes should be more tailored to the social goals of Europe 2020, and work on drawing up a European Territorial Strategy must be accelerated. It is vital to ensure much broader involvement of experts and public opinion in preparing decisions.
The EESC is of the opinion that the proposal for a regulation on ship recycling is a rather pale reflection of the previous green paper and the communication on the same subject. The two previous documents provided an impeccable analysis of ship recycling problems in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan and expressed the view that robust measures were needed to tackle the unacceptable conditions in these countries. The measures proposed in the proposal for a regulation do not however solve these problems. The EESC can only conclude that the political will is manifestly absent.