Liaison GroupThis afternoon the EESC’s Liaison Group with European civil society organisations and networks met for the last time under the joint chairmanship of Staffan Nilsson (EESC President) and Jean-Marc Roirant, President of the European Civic Forum and of the European Year of Citizens Alliance. The EESC is, according to the Treaties, composed of representatives of civil society organisations in the member states. The Liaison Group, as its name suggests, is a way of reaching out to, and co-opting, representatives of pan-European civil society organisations. Like other such innovatory bodies (the Consultative Commission on Industrial Change, for example), the Liaison Group is, from the EESC’s point of view, a sort of extension of its representative and advisory reach. Today’s meeting had two main agenda items which, although theoretically distinct, merged into a single broad debate. The first was a prospective exchange of views with the next President of the EESC, Henri Malosse. The second was a retrospective assessment of the Group’s activities over the past two years. Two conclusions, among many others, were first that the EESC has been playing well its self-defined role as the house of civil society and, second, that still more emphasis should be placed on communication back to the grass roots.