The EESC’s plenary session hosted two Commissioners today. The first, Vice-President Maros Sefcovic, came to present the European Commission’s 2010 annual work programme. This was already his second plenary visit and symbolised, I feel, his determination to work closely with the Committee. The EESC’s President, Mario Sepi, advised him not to let the Commission be sidelined by recent intergovernmental initiatives and to reassert its role. In a message reiterated by speakers from the Committee’s three groups, he insisted on ‘a mission statement for Europe which makes citizens feel that they are at the heart of Europe’, promising that civil society would be fully behind the Commission in such an endeavour.