The future Austrian Presidency of the Council has requested the EESC to draw up an exploratory opinion on the Bioeconomy, and how it can contribute to achieving the EU's climate, energy goals and the UN's sustainable development goals.
Download — Avizul CESE: Bioeconomy – contributing to achieving the EU's climate and energy goals and the UN's sustainable development goals (exploratory opinion requested by the Austrian Presidency)
The EESC believes that AI and automation processes have enormous potential to improve European society in terms of innovation and positive transformation, but they also pose significant challenges, risks and concerns.
Download — Avizul CESE: Artificial intelligence for Europe (communication)
The EESC agrees with the vision outlined in the communication. It believes that in the course of the changes generated by digital transformation, people must be at the center of care. The digitalisation processes must help healthcare professionals to spend more time with patients. It must be ensured that healthcare professions are appropriately staffed with qualified personnel and equipped with appropriate digital skills. Digital tools must be a lever to develop new forms of organisation in health and care systems.
Download — Avizul CESE: Digital transformation / health and care (communication)
The key message of the opinion is that transforming the energy system towards carbon-free, decentralised and digitalised supply offers enormous opportunities, in particular for structurally weak and rural regions in Europe. The development of renewable energy (RE) can have a major and beneficial impact on employment, and can be configured so as to provide a completely new stimulus for the regional economy. There is therefore potential for mutually reinforcing the positive effects of Europe's energy and cohesion policies. The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) finds it regrettable that both the Commission and the Member States have yet to properly recognise this potential, let alone exploit it.
Download — EESC opinion: The effects of a new carbon-free, decentralised and digitalised energy supply structure on jobs and regional economies (own initiative opinion)
The circular economy monitoring framework draws upon and complements the existing Resource Efficiency Scoreboard and Raw Materials Scoreboard, which were developed in recent years by the Commission.
Download — Avizul CESE: Monitoring framework for the circular economy (communication)
The EESC considers that social economy enterprises have a fundamental role since they are active in four key aspects of the migrant integration process: health and assistance, housing, training and education, as well as work and active inclusion. It believes that social economy enterprises can encourage and support not just the creation of new jobs, but also entrepreneurship and access to economic activities for migrants and refugees. It therefore asks the European institutions to prioritise policies geared towards social economy enterprises, a request it also made in its contribution to the Commission's 2018 work programme.
Download — Avizul CESE: Social economy enterprises as a driver for migrant integration (own-initiative opinion)
Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - The Future of Food and Farming
Download — Avizul CESE: The future of food and farming (Communication)
The Commission will prepare an action plan with a view to improve duty-holder compliance, which is meant to lead to a more level playing field for businesses and improved trust amongst Member States,
Download — Avizul CESE: Actions to improve environmental compliance and governance (Communication)
The European Economic and Social Committee welcomes the opportunity to provide an opinion on the Third report on State of the Energy Union by the European Commission, as it did before for the first and second reports. As expressed in previous opinions, the EESC strongly supports the idea of a European Energy Union and would like to stress that the Energy Union is not only relevant to sectoral policies such as energy, transport and climate but offers opportunities to make Europe more democratic, more cohesive, more competitive, and more just.
Download — EESC opinion: Third report on the State of the Energy Union
