Meeting of the EESC with Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Interinstitutional Relations

On Tuesday 9 December, the First Vice-President for Interinstitutional Relations of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans i, received a delegation from the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) led by its President, Henri Malosse. This first encounter since the arrival of the new team at the head of the Commission sets the seal on a partnership that the two institutions wish to reinforce.

The First Vice-President confirmed the intention of the European Commission to reduce the number of initiatives in a quest for greater efficiency, but stated that this change could not happen without the social partners participating in the debate. "The role of labour is changing, and we must therefore make the case for a social Europe. This is the joint responsibility of the European Commission and of the European Economic and Social Committee", he said.

For Frans Timmermans, efficiency also called for closer contact with the man in the street, and he anticipated that the EESC would play its key role to the full in this respect. Greater awareness of the situation on the ground, and especially of the impact of European policies on ordinary people, was also at the core of the concerns raised by the First Vice-President, who acknowledged that whilst there was a multitude of ex-ante evaluations, the European Commission was hampered by the fact that ex-post evaluations were relatively few and far between. President Malosse took the opportunity to inform him here of the impact studies carried out by the EESC's observatories, such as the one on the Youth Guarantee or the Services Directive in the field of construction. "The Committee has equipped itself today with the means to respond better to the issues of tomorrow by deploying new, effective tools. It is up to us to ensure that through our Committee, European civil society participates more actively in the decision-making process in Brussels. We believe that the future of Europe depends on it", he said.

Frans Timmermans expressed keen interest in these developments in the EESC and reiterated his wish that the Committee should be closely involved in the joint work of the Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission.