This own-initiative opinion stresses that any kind of violence against women is a violation of women’s human rights. The EESC believes Directive 2024/1385/EU on combating violence against women and domestic violence should address all forms of violence against women and calls for sexual violence and rape to be included as a form of violence and criminalised based on the absence of consent. Highlights that any kind of violence against women is a significant public and clinical health concern, while stressing the multiple and intersectional discrimination suffered by women with disabilities.
This new opinion aims to show with concrete examples the potential of combining advanced robotics and virtual worlds of the metaverse in the service of the medical sector and to draw conclusions on the actions to be implemented for Europe to become a leader in these sectors.
Following in the steps of the recommendations presented by Enrico Letta in his report on the Single Market, the opinion aims at proposing concrete measures on how to help reconcile the needs of social economy enterprises with the application of State Aid rules, taking into account existing good practices at national level.
Download — Avizul CESE: How to support social economy entities in line with State aid rules: thoughts following the suggestions in Enrico Letta’s report
Download — Avizul CESE: Pro-worker AI: levers for harnessing the potential and mitigating the risks of AI in connection with employment and labour market policies
A comprehensive approach is needed to revive EU competitiveness, requiring a reconsideration of the regulatory framework. Competition policy, particularly market definition, is sometimes criticized for hindering European companies' growth.
The EESC denounces the deterioration of human rights, the rule of law, and democracy, and calls for further improvements of the Commission's Annual Rule of Law Reports. Among others, it recommends that the Commission ensures meaningful involvement of civil society in both the preparation and follow-up stages of the report at the national level, and expands the Report’s section on CSOs. The Commission's assessment should be based on objective benchmarks and transparent dialogue with CSOs and the Commission needs to develop more precise and measurable country-specific recommendations with clear benchmarks, indicators and deadlines.
The recommendations of this EESC own-initiative opinion focus on ensuring a more competitive and economically, environmentally and socially sustainable European maritime space to increase the global competitiveness of the EU shipping sector. This can be achieved through broader investment policies and legislative initiatives. The social partners and civil society must be actively involved in these efforts.
The Territorial Agenda (TA) 2030 is an inter-governmental declaration with no direct legal, financial or institutional implementation instrument. The application of the Territorial Agenda 2030 relies on informal multilevel cooperation between Member States, sub-national authorities, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Committee of the Regions, the European Economic and Social Committee, the European Investment Bank and other relevant players.
Download — Avizul CESE: Revision of the Territorial Agenda 2030 - Towards a more integrated and civic approach with stronger links with the cohesion policy
Download — Avizul CESE: Amendment - Forest reproductive material: ‘tested’ category, its labelling and the names of the authorities responsible for the approval and control of the production
The Commission is proposing amendments to three EU regulations to ensure that EU funds can be quickly mobilised in support of post-disaster recovery.
The amendments concern theRegulations governing the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Cohesion Fund (CF), and the European Social FundPlus (ESF+), for the 2021-2027 programming period.
These proposals come as a direct response to the floods affecting Central and Eastern European countries and wildfires in Portugal in September 2024 and include injecting liquidity with increased pre- and co-financing under Cohesion Policy.
The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT, 1998) is a multilateral trade and investment agreement applicable to the energy sector. Eleven Member States and the UK, representing more than 70% of the European population, have already decided to exit the ECT. The ECT is the most used investment treaty by multinational corporations to sue countries and the number of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) cases is rising each year. As long as the EU is still a member of the ECT, even the EU Member States that have already left the ECT can still be sued for pursuing EU policies.
The proposed decision aims to codify the interpretation of the European Court of Justice that the ECT does not apply to disputes between a Member State and an investor of another Member State concerning an investment made by the latter in the first Member State.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, health has become a central topic on the geopolitical stage. The EU Global Health Strategy, launched at the end of 2022, shows the political path forward, guiding the EU’s role in advancing health for all beyond 2023. This own-initiative opinion will examine four key dimensions: strategic autonomy in health; structural trends in health and related sectors; health coordination; and security, defence and the mitigation of major shocks.
The aim of the opinion is to draw attention to the impact of the non-Schengen status of Bulgaria and Romania and neighbouring EU-countries on the Single Market, to assess the impact of non-Schengen membership on the competitiveness of these countries and the potential costs/benefits of Schengen for them, and to propose recommendations for policy-makers on how to address the negative effects of non-Schengen on the Single Market.
This subject of this own-initiative opinion is multidimensional, requiring from the opinion to address a wide spectrum of subtopics, while having a clear and logical thread.
The opinion will explore the state of democracy in Africa and the role that the EU-Africa partnership and the recently signed Samoa agreement can play in strengthening democracy and democratic values in the region.
