The opinion aims to present a detailed analysis of the current state of commercial relations between food suppliers and the large retail sector, it also intends to put forward arguments demonstrating that the traditional concept of contractual freedom sometimes invoked by those opposing the regulation of commercial relations is, in practice, largely obsolete.
The Mediterranean Sea accounts for over 70% of the world's nautical tourism, which creates very significant spillover benefits for its coastal countries. This form of tourism is hampered by differing national laws in areas such as the registration of recreational craft, navigation licences and safety and tax measures, to mention the most important.
The EESC welcomes the proposal for a directive for improving the gender balance among non-executive directors of companies listed on the stock exchange with a minimum objective of 40% by 2020. The EESC and the Commission recognise the need to respect the freedom to conduct business. This directive is a minimum standard which seeks to improve the conditions for business prosperity and allows Member States to progress beyond the measures recommended.
Download — EESC opinion: Gender balance on company boards
The seriousness of the maritime piracy plague has not come to the full awareness of European civil society. The EESC wishes to increase the sensitivity of civil society and European public opinion in order to mobilise Member States and the EU institutions for concrete action aiming at eradicating it. The EESC welcomes the decisions of the UN Security Council and the EU to prolong the EU/NAVFOR–ATALANTA operation until December 2014, and to extend the area of operations to East and South in the Indian Ocean and in the Somali shoreline. It believes that EU NAVFOR should be given a more robust mandate with stronger engagement rules. The EESC requests EU Member States and states in accession process or having association agreements with the EU, to enforce legal actions against piracy and prosecution of pirates on the high seas according to Article 105 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982.
Download — Maritime piracy: strengthening the EU response
The EESC recommends that the European Commission and the Member States support further studies and research that would tap the potential of gifted children and young people, aiming to facilitate employment and employability within the framework of the EU and, in a context of economic crisis, enhance specialist knowledge and prevent brain drain. It also recommends that greater consideration be given to each Member State's existing models for and experience in working with highly gifted children, and presents various proposals aimed at improving educational care for children and young people with high abilities.
Download — EESC opinion: Unleashing the potential of children and young people with high intellectual abilities in the European Union
This is the second Commission's Communication and the second EESC opinion on this subject. Although the EESC is generally supportive of the action plan, it stresses the need for more emphasis on building up the capacity of EU manufacturing companies which satisfy the market pull for new technologies. The opinion draws attention to essential background factors which jeopardise the efficiency of the action plan, for example scarcity of venture capital, lagging state aid modernisation and unclear governance of the project.
This own initiative opinion has been drafted in response to the Commission staff working document adopted on 24 April 2012 and which sets out its current thinking of what a European Code of Conduct on Partnership (ECCP) should look like during the forthcoming cohesion policy programming period. The EESC has strongly defended the need for an ECCP; in the meantime the Council has indicated that it wishes to delete all reference to an ECCP upon which the EESC President has written to the Council, Parliament and Commission arguing the need to maintain the Commission's proposals as is.
The EESC is deeply worried about the increasing concern felt among organised civil society with regard to the implementation of the partnership principle. Reports from some Member States show an on-going trend towards a dilution of this partnership principle and a decrease of participation by organised civil society.
Letter by President Staffan Nilsson to the Ministers responsible for Cohesion Policy in the European Union on the importance of the Partnership principle in the Common Provisions Regulation
