This additional opinion will complement and update the proposals made in the original 2020 Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy (ASGS) opinion, adopted in February this year, produced under time pressure and before the COVID-19 outbreak so it could not take into account recent developments.
The Semester exercise will be geared towards exiting the current crisis and the opinion is necessary for the EESC to make related proposals. The additional opinion will be presented for the October 2020 Plenary, to provide a timely input to the Commission's preparation of the next ASGS expected again for November 2020. It will therefore target directly the next European Semester cycle at the right political and institutional moment.
The forthcoming Presidency of the Council of the EU (Germany), aims to conclude together with the other EU Member States the new Territorial Agenda of the European Union (TAEU) together with the revision of the urban development policy based on the Leipzig Charter on Sustainable European Cities and also to update the steps for further developing of the Urban Agenda for the EU. In this context, the Presidency has asked from EESC to provide an opinion on both territorial and urban matters and thus to incorporate the points of view of the diverse interests the EESC represents in the discussions. The Presidency plans to adopt the renewed Territorial and Urban Agenda at the informal ministerial meeting for urban and territorial development on 30 November and 1 December 2020 in Leipzig.
The EESC proposes launching a European pact to effectively combat tax fraud, evasion and avoidance and money laundering. The Committee calls on the European Commission to promote a political initiative involving national governments and the other European institutions in achieving this goal, fostering the consensus needed for this and involving civil society. Cooperation between Member States should be the main pillar of the pact. The Committee urges the European institutions and the Member States to provide the financial and human resources required for the effective implementation of existing European legislation and to agree on a commitment to adopt all necessary new legislative and administrative measures to effectively combat tax offences and bad practices, money laundering and the activities of tax havens. This requires permanent evaluation of the outcome of implementing each measure.
The forthcoming Presidency of the Council of the EU (Germany), aims to further discuss and analyze the policy objective 1 under the Common Provisions Regulation for cohesion policy that refers to '' a smarter Europe by promoting innovative and smart economic transformation''. In this context, the Presidency has asked the EESC to provide an opinion on how the structural measures and cohesion policy programmes can help in this process. The Presidency plans to present the key findings of this discussion in a High-level conference that will take place on 29th of September where also the opinion of EESC will be discussed.
