Kumitat Ekonomiku u Socjali Ewropew
Organised by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) on 28 February 2019, the public hearing on 'Civil Society in Action: European Bioeconomy Strategy' brought together several representatives of different civil society organisations and institutions.
Food plays a central role in people's lives and diets must be tackled from a nutritional and health point of view as well as from an environmental, economic, social and cultural angle. To facilitate such a comprehensive approach, the EESC calls for the introduction of new Sustainable Dietary Guidelines in its own-initiative opinion on "Promoting healthy and sustainable diets in the EU".
Food is at the centre of our lives and an integral part of the European culture. Food also plays a crucial role in our economy: it is the Union’s biggest manufacturing sector in terms of employment and contribution to GDP. Also, the food we eat, the ways we produce it and the amounts wasted have major impacts on human health, on natural resources and on society as a whole.
Non-state and subnational actors have so far played a decisive role in action on climate, but they often face unsurmountable obstacles. At the COP 24 climate change conference in Katowice, Poland, on 2-14 December 2018, the president of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Luca Jahier, stressed how urgent it was to tackle climate change and underlined the fact that Europe needed to embrace a new mechanism for sustainability that included multi-stakeholder governance.
A lot is already happening on the ground for the implementation of the SDGs – both as top-down goals with governments and institutions providing the driving force and as bottom-up initiatives by non-state actors and civil society. National and local sustainable development strategies, which are successfully involving civil society, were presented at one of a series of events on this topic at the EESC last week. However, an overarching European strategy, which would provide the coherence and guidance needed for the implementation of the SDGs at national and local level, is still missing.
As the Commission is getting ready to publish the second edition of the Environmental Implementation Review (EIR) next year, the EESC is currently preparing an exploratory opinion at the request of the European Parliament on the implementation of EU environmental laws, particularly in the areas where the biggest shortcomings are found (air quality, water and waste).
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) believes a fully-funded, strong Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is essential and rejects any cuts to the CAP budget. The EESC welcomes the legislative proposals on the CAP, with the new focus on increased environmental and climate change ambition, subsidiarity and simplification.
While welcoming the greater freedom the new proposals on subsidiarity would give individual Member States, the EESC is keen to ensure that the CAP remains a common policy with a strong single market.
He agrees with the EESC that more needs to be done in the areas of prevention and preparedness
In light of the dramatic impact of climate change, which affects the whole of Europe, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) urges the European institutions to adopt further joint measures and policies under the rescEU proposal in order to respond to disasters more efficiently and effectively.
Shortly after the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 8 October urging countries to massively shift towards a new paradigm, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has adopted an opinion arguing for a "finance-climate pact" to ensure the financing of the necessary transitions. With the EU budget for the period 2021/2027 about to be adopted, the EESC tables the most ambitious proposal among the EU institutions: 40% of the EU budget should be devoted to the fight against climate change and its consequences, be it environmental, economic or social.
The European Commission's action plan, aimed at improving the poor and uneven implementation of EU environmental law and governance across the EU, shows a serious lack of ambition and resources as it proposes measures that are too weak to adequately and uniformly sanction non-compliance by Member States, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has said in a recent opinion.
