EESC President Staffan Nilsson during the debate

This afternoon the EESC’s plenary session held a short, pithy debate on the current crisis. This followed on from a debate in yesterday’s Bureau and debates in this morning’s meetings of the Committee’s three Groups. Henri Malosse (President, Employers’ Group, France) described the dialectics between solidarity and responsibility and between governance and leadership. He argued that all four were necessary but that there should be more emphasis on leadership in particular. Georges Dassis (President, Employees’ Group, Greece) spoke evocatively of how ‘The young don’t dream much any more, and if they dream their dreams are dark.’ Like Malosse, he emphasised solidarity as a fundamental quality of the Union. Michael Smyth (President, Section for Economic Affairs, United Kingdom) warned against under-estimating the risk of a second banking crisis which would necessarily be on a far greater scale than the first and have untold consequences. The Committee President, Staffan Nilsson, subsequently issued a statement, accessible here. He plans a series of special meetings and activities in the run up to the EESC’s December plenary session, where a debate will be held with Commissioner Olli Rehn and a resolution adopted.