Events

  • @DiversEESC
    Extraordinary Group III Meeting

    On 14 November, the Group III organised its Extraordinary meeting in Luxembourg, at the premises of the European Investment Bank (EIB). The meeting entitled Communicating Your Europe: Solid Facts and Information was divided in two main parts: one part dealing with the EFSI and the Invest EU Programme (2021-2027) and the other part focussing on a presentation by Eurostat of 1) Big Data, challenges and opportunities and 2) Quality of Life Indicators. Stay tuned to get more information regarding this event ! 

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    Additional opportunities for trade, investment and cooperation and Technological change and its impact on the labour market

    Following the signature of the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) on 17 July this year, the EU-Japan Follow-up Committee organised a mission to Japan (Tokyo and Kobe) from 13 to 15 November, with the aim to continue to strengthen cooperation and ties between the EESC and its main partners in Japan and to prepare for the establishment of Domestic Advisory Groups (DAGs) and the Joint Dialogue with the civil society in the framework of the Trade and Sustainable Development Chapter of the EU-Japan EPA.

    A high-level conference took place in Tokyo on 13-14 November. With focus on the EPA, discussions covered the role of the civil society in monitoring the EU-Japan EPA as well as opportunities for trade, investment and cooperation following the signature of the agreement. A second part of the conference was dedicated to Technological change and its impact on the labour market. In Tokyo, the EU-Japan Follow-up Committee members also had bilateral meetings with the EESC's main partner organisations in Japan, and on 15 November in Kobe, a seminar took place on Technological change and its impact on the labour market, organised in cooperation with the University of Kobe.

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    Hotel Safari - Windhoek (Namibia), 8-9 November 2018

    On the basis of the Cotonou agreement, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) is mandated to organise consultation sessions and meetings of ACP-EU economic and social interest groups in order to voice these actors' views on the ACP-EU partnership and foster cooperation between civil society organisations.

    Within this framework, the EESC organises regional seminars every year in one of the ACP regions.

    This year, the EESC is organising a regional seminar in Windhoek (Namibia) on 8-9 November 2018.

  • This event is organised in the context of the preparation of an own-initiative opinion on the topic of "Employment opportunities for economically inactive people". It focuses in particular on this category of people, who, contrary to unemployed, are less studied. However, they have a labour market potential, and specific active public policies need to be created for them. Speakers include representatives of the European Commission, Eurofound and organised civil society.

  • An interactive exchange on initiatives for responsible business conduct in the EU

    The purpose of the conference is to raise awareness, across the EU, on how multi-stakeholder actions can boost the achievement of the SDGs, to identify success factors, and to develop follow-up actions for upscaling these to EU-level.

    The specific conference objectives are:

    • Firstly, to identify and share experiences in relation to national instruments and initiatives designed to foster responsible business conduct in international value chains, and to explore which initiatives could possibly be scaled up to EU-level.
    • Secondly, to higlight the importance of improved and sustained coherence between relevant internal and external EU policies - which is paramount to the effective implementation of initiatives on responsible business conduct, as the replication of a variety of initiatives might impact both the EU internal market (e.g. calling for guidance how tension with competition law can be avoided) and the EU’s external policies, including trade, development, and environmental policies.
    • Thirdly, to explore how these existing approaches can feed into and complement the work of the European Commission's Multistakeholder Platform on SDG implementation efforts across sectors, as announced in Next steps for a sustainable European future, November 2016.

    Finally yet importantly, the concept of the conference dovetails with the idea to highlight the role of civil society and industry organisations in contributing to the achievement of the SDGs.

    The conference is co-organised with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER).

  • The 5th meeting of the EU Domestic Advisory Group under the EU-Ukraine DCFTA took place on 29 October 2018 in Brussels. Please click on the programme tab to consult the topics on the agenda.

  • The purpose of this public hearing was to take stock of the EU climate finance architecture, discuss bottlenecks in climate finance access for local actors and propose solutions on how to unlock more and better climate action by adopting collaborative approaches to climate finance.

  • Assessing women's and children's health

    On the 29th October, the Group on the Inclusion of the Roma will be looking at the Roma's current health situation and their access to healthcare.  Issues such as discrimination in access to health care, differences in life expectancy between Roma and non-Roma, as well as poverty and its effects on the Roma's health situation will be discussed.  The hearing will also look into the situation in women's and children's health, with a particular emphasis on forced sterilizations, pregnancy and infant mortality, as well as vaccination amongst children.  It will also feature a discussion on the solutions offered by the state in the light of health issues brought about by poverty, as well as recommendations on the way forward.

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    Opportunities for SMEs emerging from digital revolution – this will be the focus of the Extraordinary Meeting of the Bureau of the Employers' Group that will take place in Vienna on 24 and 25 October 2018. Apart from bringing concrete examples of SMEs benefitting from digitalisation, the participants will elaborate on potential of eIDAS (electronic IDentification, Authentication and trust Services) for SMEs and show the perspective of non-EU country on digital revolution. The impact of digitalization on education and dual system will also be analysed.

     

  • The Civil Society Platform complements the political bodies existing within the framework of the EU-Moldova Association Agreement, and it allows civil society organisations from both sides to monitor the implementation process and prepare their recommendations to the relevant authorities both in the Republic of Moldova as well as in the European Union. At this fourth meeting, participants discussed Human rights and democratic institutions in Moldova.