The EESC Plenary today highlighted the importance of the collaborative economy and the functional economy as new business models for a more sustainable Europe. But it also called on the Commission to ensure that the collaborative economy does not increase job insecurity and the opportunity for tax avoidance. Nudge thinking is one way to achieve this. The Committee debated a number of key issues affecting Europe's future economic development with Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen.

COP22 (Conference of the Parties) is taking place in Marrakech, Morocco, from 7-18 November 2016. The Paris Agreement adopted at COP21 December 2015 set out the long-term goal of limiting global warming “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”. With its recent ratification by several countries and the EU, it officially entered into force on 4 November 2016.

Exactly 20 years since the first Cork Declaration, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the Committee of the Regions (CoR) organised a joint conference on balanced territorial development under the title ...