In its opinion on 'Additional considerations on the euro area economic policy 2024', the EESC urges closer coordination of national budgetary policies and considers instruments like NextGenerationEU essential for future stability.
The EESC recommends including similar tools in the EU’s future financial frameworks to ensure resilience and fiscal sustainability.
The Committee calls for the completion of the Capital Markets Union to prevent investors from migrating to global markets, prioritising financial market stability and consumer protection, and highlights the need to fully implement the Banking Union by addressing regulatory disparities across Member States, creating a common deposit insurance scheme, and mobilising financial resources for European infrastructure projects.
Ensuring adequate social protection is key to decent work. To secure a sustainable future for the EU with a strong economy and social dimension, in this opinion the EESC advocates improving social protection for all workers, including those in atypical or new forms of work, including under comparable conditions, for the self-employed, to provide sufficient benefits for all. This would help reduce inequalities, as well as the gender gap in social protection. While this is primarily a national responsibility, the EESC urges the EU to support Member States in addressing protection gaps for atypical work, without undermining the flexibility it offers to workers and employers. Finally, the EESC encourages Member States to share best practices and calls on the Commission to promote mutual learning with social partner organisations.
The opinion looks into the opportunities and risks from new technologies for public services, which are taken to mean the activities or services that public authorities of the Member States at national, regional or local level classify as being of general interest.
The EESC considers that AI can make public services more efficient and more accessible, in particular to the most vulnerable people in society. It can also reduce workload for public services' workers and it should be borne in mind that these services are provided by human beings, at their own pace, in their own time and with their own requirements.
Download — Mnenje EESO: Fostering opportunities and managing risks from new technologies for public services, the organisation of work and more equal and inclusive societies
Public Procurement was better framed in successive EU regulations and, with a view to more accessible and transparent access to it, the procedures were formulated in a more supportive manner. Its importance will continue to increase, both at a national level in the Member States and at a more local level.
Several challenges remain Particularly at the national level, the size and volume play to the advantage of larger companies that can rely on experience and expertise when drawing up files. At a more local level, there are opportunities for MSMEs and, even more specifically, for companies in the social economy. These opportunities require active attention and guidance from both the requesting and offering parties.
The EESC supports fostering joint programmes among higher education institutions within and beyond European University Alliance projects, ensuring quality assurance and including all relevant stakeholdersin their implementation. It emphasises the need for broad collaboration among stakeholders to effectively implement the initiatives, particularly highlighting the fundamental values of student and staff participation following the Bologna Process. The EESC calls for the involvement of relevant labour market stakeholders in defining study programmes that have particular relevance to the labour market. It emphasises the need for adequate resources to implement these initiatives effectively.
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) was asked by the upcoming Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU to produce an exploratory opinion on paving the way to EU accession for the Western Balkans, underlining the benefits of the future enlargement to the region from a holistic point of view.
Download — Mnenje EESO: Ensuring equal opportunities and social inclusion in access to culture, lifelong learning and the role of public cultural institutions in this process
