The Belgian presidency of the Council of the European Union asked the EESC to provide their insights on the rethinking of the internal market in light of the acceleration of the Union’s twin transitions towards a green and digital economy and on crafting a European Industrial Strategy that positions industries as the backbone of Europe's economy.
Download — Mnenje EESO: Developing a new European strategy for the Internal Market: helping our businesses to meet technological, social, environmental and competition challenges
EU rules on late payments have triggered a reduction in payment delays. However, still more than 60% of businesses in the EU are not paid on time and small and medium-sized enterprises are most affected. The initiative will provide relief to SMEs by revising existing EU payment rules based on available and upcoming evidence to promote a definitive shift towards a culture of “prompt payment".
Download — Mnenje EESO: Revision of the late payments Directive
Corruption and the lack of rule of law undermine the mutual trust that is underpinning the internal market. The EESC believes that efforts to fight corruption should be better aligned with efforts to safeguard and develop democracy in the EU. Moreover, the EESC stresses that the EU must prioritise evaluating the legislative framework on the integrity of public procurement and its implementation in practice and believes that the cross-debarment system could be useful for protecting the internal market from misuse of public resources allocated to tenders.
Download — Mnenje EESO: Corruption in public procurement and its impact on the internal market
Proposal for a Directive of the European parliament and of the Council amending Directives 1999/2/EC, 2000/14/EC, 2011/24/EU and 2014/53/EU as regards certain reporting requirements in the fields of food and food ingredients, outdoor noise, patients’ rights, and radio equipment.
Download — Mnenje EESO: Reporting requirements in the fields of food and food ingredients, outdoor noise, patients’ rights, and radio equipment
EESC opinion on the Proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2013/34/EU as regards the time limits for the adoption of sustainability reporting standards for certain sectors and for certain third-country undertakings.
Download — Mnenje EESO: Adoption of sustainability reporting standards
According to the EESC, the EU Disability Card should be voluntary and free of charge and its scope extended to provide access to services and benefits to people who are in another Member State on a temporary basis. The cards should be accompanied by the setting up of an EU, fully accessible website, with an easy-to-read version, available in all EU languages including sign languages, providing practical information for every country.
Download — Mnenje EESO: European Disability Card and the European Parking Card for persons with disabilities
The revision of the Victims' Rights Directive aims to ensure that victims' rights are ensured, easier to access and improved for all victims' of crimes throughout the Union. The EESC welcomes this proposal and supports the following: improving the individual assessment of victims' needs, paying particular attention to more vulnerable or marginalised groups; improving guidelines and training so that such assessments are done correctly; enhancing the victim's right to information and having the right to review a decision during court proceedings; strengthening compensation schemes for victims.
Download — Mnenje EESO: Revision of victims' rights directive
This initiative aims at providing detailed rules to support the smooth functioning of the cooperation and consistency mechanism established by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
In this opinion, the EESC suggests several changes to the Commission's proposal, to make the text fully compliant with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Namely, the Committee suggest that if the adoption of a legal measure against a vulnerable person clearly violates human rights and international law, a Member State should be obliged not recognise such a measure.
Download — Mnenje EESO: International protection of adults
This initiative reports on the application and impact of EU rules on payment services, as required by the review clause of the Second Payment Services Directive and announced in the Commission´s retail payments strategy of 2020.
Vulnerable groups pay a proportionally higher price of the consequences of climate change although they contribute less to it. In this opinion, the EESC calls for the development of a comprehensive EU political and social strategy to be able to respond proactively to climate emergency, stressing on the social aspects of the just transition. To do so, the EESC recommends, among other measures, the EU Social Climate Fund and the EU Climate Adjustment Fund be supplemented with additional instruments.
Download — Mnenje EESO: The climate crisis and its effect on vulnerable groups
The Commission’s aim for this non-legislative initiative is to “propose tools on developing open human-centric virtual worlds,” according to the 2023 work program .
Download — Mnenje EESO: Initiative on virtual worlds
The EESC is a fervent defender of multilateralism and a rules-based world order. Its External Relations Section deals with many topics relevant to the broad spectrum covered by the United Nations and its specialised agencies, while many EESC opinions refer to core international principles and regularly cite the United Nations.
Download — Mnenje EESO: Strengthening Multilateralism and core international principles for a rules-based order in a rapidly changing world – The importance of Civil Society contribution to the UN system
