The EESC underlines that artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmic management (AM) can improve the quality of employment and working conditions if they respect the human-in-control principle. They can strengthen occupational safety and health, enhance work organization, work-life balance and skills development. The EESC also draws attention to risks related to OSH, data use and underlines the importance of ensuring transparency, explainability and fairness in the use of AI and AM. Finally, the EESC underlines the central role of social dialogue and collective bargaining at all levels in this field.
Download — Opinia Sekcji: Enhancing quality in employment and working conditions by introducing and promoting related tools (incl. AI) and strengthening social dialogue and collective bargaining
The Cyprus Presidency has asked the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) to draw up an exploratory opinion aimed at analysing how affordable housing initiatives can integrate measures to reduce energy costs for families and support vulnerable households.
The new European Grids Package seeks to strengthen and modernise the EU’s energy infrastructure, ensuring secure, affordable and increasingly clean energy flows across Member States. It introduces a more coordinated planning framework, accelerates permitting, and enhances investment to support a fully interconnected and future-proof European energy system.
The proposal simplifies and streamlines EU technical rules and testing procedures for motor vehicles to reduce regulatory burdens and costs for the automotive industry, while maintaining safety and environmental standards.
This opinion addressed the Commission's legislative initiative which aims to reduce the administrative burden without affecting the environmental objectives agreed under the existing legislation in the areas of, among others, industrial installations and circular economy, environmental assessments and permitting, chemical waste, Extended Producer Responsibility and waste management.
In response to the successful European Citizens' Initiative, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has adopted an own-initiative opinion calling on the European Commission to introduce a legally binding EU-wide ban on conversion practices by including such practices as 'EU crimes' and recognising them as hate crimes. The EESC strongly condemns any practices aimed at changing, suppressing or erasing a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression, considering them incompatible with human dignity and in breach of the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. The EESC calls for a comprehensive and precisely defined ban covering both children and adults, all public and private actors, and the advertisement of such practices. It recommends that the prohibition explicitly includes sex characteristics, in order to protect intersex individuals from non-consensual and non-therapeutic interventions.
The Commission proposal is a key element of the Savings and Investments Union agenda. The EESC considers the Commission proposal a step in the good direction, and stresses that more ambition is needed. In particular, to remove remaining duplicative reporting obligations, maintain a level-playing field, increase transparency of systematic internalisers, create a category of 'covered cross-border bonds', and to ensure that supervision leads to identical outcomes all across the EU.
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) acknowledges persistent trends towards institutionalisation & stresses the urgent need for a legally binding directive that translates Article 19 on legal capacity of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) into concrete measures. Additionally, the EESC advocates for mandatory national de-institutionalisation strategies, developed in collaboration with disabled people’s organisations (DPOs), with allocated budgets, deadlines, and measurable targets. The EESC also urges the integration of de-institutionalisation into the EU’s affordable housing plan, ensuring accessibility requirements in all EU-funded housing projects & the development of national accessible housing strategies. Stronger coordination between ESF+, ERDF, & InvestEU is essential to expand community-based supported housing solutions.
Current legislation requires N2 vehicles to be equipped with speed‑limitation devices, a rule originally designed for heavy‑duty vehicles to ensure road safety and environmental protection. Electric vans, however, often fall into the N2 category solely due to their battery weight. The exemption aims to align electric vans with their fossil‑fuel equivalents and support the transition to cleaner transport.
In this own-initiative opinion, the EESC argues that deeper integration of the Single Market is essential to boost productivity, particularly in the services sector, which remains less integrated despite its growing economic importance.
