This morning, literally hours before the European Council meeting got underway, the European Economic and Social Committee’s plenary session debated the financial and economic crisis, with Jean-Paul Delevoye, President of the French Economic, Social and Environmental Council also participating in the debate. Afterwards, EESC President Staffan Nilsson published a statement (you can read it in full below). There was broad consensus in the debate not just that the key to the solution is to re-establish growth as soon as possible but also that whatever political and constitutional agreements are found must be felt to be ‘owned’ by the European citizen (as opposed to being regarded as a unilateral imposition). In other words, the twin messages arising out of the debate were: ‘yes, more Europe is necessary, but we must explain clearly why.’

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This evening the European Economic and Social Committee held a reception to welcome and congratulate the representatives of the three organisations that had earlier been awared the Committee’s Civil Society Prize. Rather than publish a photograph of the evening, though, I would prefer to post this lovely ‘family portrait’ of the President with the winners. Here is graphic evidence of Europe’s ‘social capital’; young, dynamic citizens working hard across borders to bring Europeans together.

This afternoon the EESC plenary session welcomed Grazyna Maria Bernatowicz, Polish State Secretary for European Policy and Human Rights, who had come to set out what was a very positive balance sheet of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union (though technically not completely over until the end of December). This was Poland’s first such Presidency and therefore symbolically a very important one. Speaker after speaker confirmed that the Polish government had acquitted itself with flying colours across the board in all policy areas.

The European Economic and Social Committee’s 476th plenary session got under way this afternoon with the award ceremony for the Committee’s 2011 civil society prize. The winners are: first prize: Erasmus Student Network (ESN); second prize: European Alternatives; third prize: The Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions (OBESSU). A representative of each organisation was called to receive the prize and then gave a short address. They all truly impressed as speakers and we members of the judging panel (basically, the enlarged Presidency) were delighted to have been able to make such a choice from a very strong field. If you want to know more about the organisations and why they were awarded their prizes, you can watch a video here. And you can learn more about our worthy winners here.

Nilsson, Tombinsky, Krawczyk, me

From the Christmas carols my President, Staffan Nilsson, and I hot-footed it upstairs to the sixth floor of the Jacques Delors building where we attended the opening of our last cultural event in the context of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, a photographic exhibition entiled ‘Artists for Europe’.  We heard speeches from Ambassador Jan Tombinski, our Vice-President, Jacek Krawczyk, and the curator of the exhibition, Wladyslaw Serwatowski. The photographer himself, Czelaw Czaplinski, was also present. The exhibition is a collection of photographic portraits of internationally-known Polish artists, both living and dead, and is a rich reminder of Poland’s vibrant culture. Ambassador Tombinski, taking time out from the hectic lead-up to the European Council meeting later this week, spoke eloquently about a Europe with ‘more nations than states, more peoples than nations’ and reminded everybody that it was this generation’s duty to preserve and pass on Europe’s progress to our successors…

Christmas is coming! The Christmas tree has been erected and decorated in the entrance hall of the Jacques Delors building and this lunchtime the EU institutions’ very own Christmas choristers came, as every year, and regaled us with a selection of Christmas carols from various member states. Now the countdown to Christmas begins!

Elio Di Rupo

The happy news that Belgium at long last has a government and a Prime Minister, Elio Rupo, whose parents were Italian migrants, confirmed the theme of a review article I wrote recently for European Political Science, about Europeans on the move. Basically, I argue that Europeans have always been on the move throughout the continent. The advent of the nation state, with frontiers and customs posts and passports, may have slowed things down a bit, but the movements still go on perpetually, and it was ever thus. The text of the review article can be read below.

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Fudan University (Shanghai)

Well, actually, that’s an exaggeration. But it is true that I recently had an article published in a Chinese academic journal (The Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences (Volume 4, N° 3, September 2011) published by the Fudan Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences. I am writing this post now because the theme of the article (pithily titled ‘The Growing Conceputalisation, Institutionalisation and Concretisation of Civil Society’s Role in Global Governance’) is related to the Bureau’s discussion with Vice-President Maros Sefcovic. Nobody is arguing that participatory democracy should replace representative democracy – at least, not in the EU and its member states, but with some elements of our representative democracy model in decline (not least the mass membership political party and the primacy of parliaments), it can play an important flanking role. And where representative democracy is malfunctioning or non-existent, organised civil society can at times be the only vector for reform, as the quotation from UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon cited in the article makes clear. The role of civil society organisations may be ‘messy’ and difficult to quantify but it is definitely growing. The text of the article can be read below.

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European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic attended the European Economic and Social Committee’s Bureau meeting this afternoon. The long exchange of views focused in on the crisis and the responses of the Eurozone and of the Union more generally. Several speakers underlined the importance of fleshing out the Lisbon Treaty’s provisions on participatory democracy (Article 11). The Treaty was drafted in response to two major challenges: enlargement and the gap between the EU and its citizens. Enlargement has duly occurred but the gap with the citizen has, if anything, grown wider. The long Bureau meeting was consensual and productive, with discussions on a number of important matters for the Committee and its work.

At lunchtime today my counterpart at the Committee of the Regions, Gerhard Stahl, and I had lunch together in the staff canteen accompanied by a photographer. The photo opportunity was to publicise our truly sustainable canteen. For the rest of this post I shall simply reproduce our joint press release. For the record, we had vegetarian chile sans carne – and jolly good it was too! ‘In 2010 the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions received the “Ecodynamic Enterprise” label awarded by Brussels, putting them in the top category of Brussels-based organisations in terms of environmental performance. By turning their self-service restaurant into a canteen serving sustainable food with a good North-South balance, the Committees live up to their reputation and show the way for all EU institutions. In October 2011 the canteen in the Jacques Delors building had a makeover. The self-service area has been revamped, with new equipment installed and a shiny new set of crockery to brighten up your mealtimes. But what is more important: the food has changed! The Belliard 99 self-service restaurant now offers a varied and balanced menu, with an emphasis on organic products. It pays special attention to the daily consumption of fresh fruits, vegetables and fibre-rich foods produced in environmentally-friendly ways. The canteen uses top-quality fresh produce, offers more homemade-style dishes with a focus on unprocessed ingredients and makes “Recipe cards” available, setting out the ingredients, weights and calories of the food. Sustainable food is healthy and balanced and meets nutritional needs. It is food produced from farming methods that protect the environment, the climate, the soil, water, natural and domestic biodiversity, and the welfare of farm animals. It involves lower energy consumption and generates less waste, with reduced food mileage, less imported products, no out-of-season fruit and vegetables, less packaging, etc. The CoR/EESC canteen uses local, seasonal food, produced by responsible farming around Brussels. Seafood is sustainably sourced (no endangered species, produced by environmentally-friendly means), and food waste and other kinds of waste are monitored and progressively reduced. Last but not least, the canteen sources all products that are not available locally (bananas, coffee, fruit juice, pineapple, tea, chocolate, rice, dried fruit, etc.) from fair trade. This supports providing decent working conditions and promoting a sustainable local economy and fair trading conditions for farmers and workers in developing countries by ensuring that they receive a fair wage for their work. All of this is another good reason to come to the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee in Rue Belliard 99! Every day the 30 workers of the CoR/EESC canteen process 160 kilos of vegetables and serve 650 menus. Since 2010 the canteen has reduced about 39 % of its waste.’