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 welcomes as such the Commission's Social Investment Package and the shift in approach it represents. However, the EESC considers that the question of financing remains largely unanswered. Better use of the European structural and investment funds and the best possible targeting of the measures are certainly to be welcomed, but will certainly not be enough to achieve the desired policy shift.
The international economic and financial crisis exposed the structural limitations and contradictions in EMU, depriving the euro of its propensity to attract. The EESC believes that the single currency will be unsustainable unless we achieve convergence between the economic capacities of the euro area countries and improve overall competitiveness, objectives which require economic as well as political commitment. The Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance stresses stability without proposing joint financial instruments for recovery and employment. Europe needs to go back to generating wealth in order to redistribute it fairly. Briefly, these are the EESC's four recommendations for completing the euro framework, i.e.
The opinion will seek to examine how trade relations with the region can best be developed by means of a first example country, which is Morocco. Trade relations with Morocco stand out as a priority because the EU currently has the closest trade links with Morocco of all the countries in the region.