Brussels, 17/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - Visiting Lebanon on Tuesday 16 June, the president of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Henri Malosse, relaunched the idea of creating a Euro-Mediterranean economic and social committee (ESC). His announcement, made in Beirut, is noteworthy because Lebanese economic and social circles are at the forefront of support for this initiative, and at each annual session of the ESCs and similar structures in the Euro-Mediterranean area, they show their active backing.
Malosse intends to make this idea of a common structure concrete - both in order to strengthen the dialogue between the region's economic and social partners, and in order to structure the activity of civil societies.
During his visit, Malosse also underlined the need to reactivate the Lebanese ESC. This committee is in the process of resuming its activities. Its former leader, Roger Nasnas, a company manager, has kept it in activity in a rather informal way since 2006. According to Lebanese daily newspaper L'Orient-le-jour, Malosse also stated that Lebanon “is bearing a heavy burden due to the large number of Syrian refugees”. He “took a tour of the Syrian refugee camps in Saïda”. (Fathi B'Chir)