News

On July 2 Social Platform participated in the meeting of the EESC Civil Society Liaison Group. Conny Reuter, co-chair thanked the Platform for its work with drafting the liaison groups contribution to the Europe 2020 mid-term review report.

Mr Zufiaur Narvaiza President of the External Relations (REX) Section of the EESC was invited to present their work with strengthening civil society organisations in external relations, e.g. within the African Union, China, Russia, Latin America and enlargement countries. They work on facilitating joint migration and border policy by considering EU initiatives for legal migration, e.g. through visa regulations and offices in countries of origin. For the post 2015 Agenda they focus on public private partnership, eradicating poverty and sustainable development. The issue of TTIP is a sensitive where the interests between different groups and regions needs to be taken into account, they are currently drafting an opinion regarding the specificity of public services and fair treatment in line with the EU Treaty, taking into account the participation of both EU and USA civil society (similar to the way has been done in agreement with Japan). The REX Section is planning on discussing social economy at their meeting in November. Social Platform raised the importance of support from EESC, also in their work in external relation to promote EU internal and external coherence in terms of human rights. Social Platform and the Human Rights and Democracy Network  are calling for an EU internal human rights strategy, inspired by the HR-framework that exist for EU external relations (see previous news)

Mr Pierluigi Brombo, Head of Unit for relations with CSO presented a draft newsletter for the Liaison Group that will soon be available. Finally, the Information Centre of EESC informed about their library accessible for stakeholders online and to visit, it includes broad resources on civil society organisations.