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.
Language competences are vital in order to foster mobility of workers and students and ultimately to improve the employability of the European workforce. Thus it is necessary to work in all possible ways on improving the language competences of Europeans.
We need good language policies and practices which can lead to successful language learning. In recent years, the EESC has drawn up three opinions for the European institutions on Europe's multilingualism strategy. Also, multilingualism policy has always been part of the EESC's political priorities.
Language Rich Europe- Staffan Nilsson`s welcome address
The EESC has called for a European stimulus package for the labour market policy, amounting to 2% of GDP. We recognise that the "Compact for Growth and Jobs" adopted at the European Council summit in June 2012 is a first important step in that direction. This must be further fleshed out to create the needed room for manoeuvre for sustainable growth and employment across the Europe.
In my work programme as the President of the EESC, my goal is to consolidate the social dimension of the EU: improve employment conditions and promote social integration, fighting the poverty and exclusion that are afflicting vulnerable groups across all of Europe.
A social Europe is a Europe with a society that combines economic growth with high living standards and good working conditions, or at least decent jobs and worthy living conditions for all. A social Europe is a society that cares about its most vulnerable.
Over the last 10 years, the EESC has proposed an important number of opinions on the ageing of the European population and issued opinions on issues such as: the needs of older citizens, funding health and pension systems, employing older workers, intergenerational solidarity, technological solutions to improve the quality of life of older persons, long-term care, etc.
The EESC has been particularly active during the European Year 2012. It created a group to coordinate activities related to the Year. This group has organised 5 public events on different themes.
Staffan Nilsson speech at the 2012 European Year of Active ageing... closing conference