Rare diseases are often chronic and sometimes disabling diseases affecting an estimated 25/30 million European citizens. Even more people are affected as care taker or family. Patients and relatives face difficulties in access to diagnosis, treatment or care and in their inclusion to society and labour market. In this opinion, the EESC presents its recommendations on how to improve social protection for these patients and raise awareness on their situation and needs.
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The objective of the own-initiative opinion is to provide EESC's input into the discussions and future actions in regard to emergency preparedness, especially focusing on the impact on businesses.
Combating all forms of discrimination is one of the aims of the EU, as enshrined in the Treaties. Yet, Member States have never agreed on the Directive proposed by the European Commission in 2008, which would have extended the existing EU protection against discrimination to all policy areas. Such a situation has created an "artificial hierarchy of protected grounds" whereby areas such as sex, and racial or ethnic origin, enjoy wider protection than other grounds like religion or belief, age, disability and sexual orientation. This Own-Initiative Opinion seeks to address this situation, by recalling the need to adopt a comprehensive directive, but by proposing complementary actions notably based on the recognition of the general principle of equality.
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The aim of this OIO is to identify avenues for a transparent and credible sustainability-labelling framework, which is easy to understand and empowers consumers to make more sustainable food choices. The OIO would contribute to achieving more sustainable and healthy food systems in practice by exploring potential avenues to empower the consumer to make more sustainable buying decisions.
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The aim of this own-initiative opinion is to develop a strategy to achieve a sustainable plant protein and plant oil open autonomy in the EU by analysing the potential of EU-grown plants. It will also discuss the potential of pure plant oil as a sustainable source for running heavy tractors and other agriculture and forestry machines in a sustainable energy system.
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Download — Avizul CESE: Multilateral investor-state arbitration court: assessment of the UNCITRAL process and its achievements in light of civil society recommendations
The objective of the proposed opinion is to enlarge the debate around the concept of cultural diplomacy by providing concrete recommendations and proposing actions to strengthen and optimise this innovative area of policy. We plan to focus on the reinforcement of the coherence of EU external policies and instruments; on the complementarity between the tangible and intangible heritage; on the link with climate change as a source of crisis; on the inclusion and empowerment of local actors, women and youth; on possibilities to develop concrete cooperation and partnerships between EU cultural Institutions and Civil Society Organisations (CSO) and their counterparts in third countries.
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Achieving the digital transition is a fundamental challenge for the European Union in order to maintain a high level of business competitiveness. Winning this challenge is also decisive for global competition, for what could be defined as the maintenance of "digital sovereignty".
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EU companies rely excessively on banking financing and are highly indebted. This own-initiative opinion proposes the development of a highly subordinated instrument at EU level that boosts the recapitalisation of EU firms. This would be a secure and easy-to-implement solution for SMEs, that would improve their financial position and promote investment without increasing leverage.
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Download — Avizul CESE: Specific provisions for the 2014-2020 cooperation programmes supported by the European Neighbourhood Instrument and under the European territorial cooperation goal, following programme implementation disruption
The Commission intends to work with Member States, the Ukrainian authorities, transport operators, equipment suppliers and all other relevant stakeholders on both sides to establish alternative and optimised logistic routes: the new ‘EU-Ukraine Solidarity Lanes’. These lanes will facilitate in particular the forwarding of agricultural produce from Ukraine, but also our bilateral trade in goods and access of Ukraine to international markets and global supply chains making sure much needed cereals reach the world market.
This own initiative opinion intends to explore the role of business transfers in the sustainable recovery and growth in European SME sector and how the business transfers could be further promoted and facilitated at the European level. There is a need to accelerate concrete follow-up actions for the promotion of business transfers, which is also one of the action points of the recent EU SME Strategy. It is crucial to raise awareness of the potential that business transfers have to the economic growth and the SME sector.
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COM(2022) 204 concerns the reform of the current EU rules on Distance Marketing of Consumer Financial Services, which govern financial services sold at a distance. The overall objective of the proposal is to promote the provision of financial services in the internal market while ensuring a high level of consumer protection.
