Brussels, 30/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - The 2015 Euro-Mediterranean summit of the economic and social councils (ESC) opened at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels on Monday 30 November.
The event provides the opportunity for open dialogue between social partners on both shores of the Mediterranean, and more broadly with organised civil society. It comes at a sensitive time, marked by the persistence of political upheavals and the terrorist threat in the whole Euro-Mediterranean area.
“The challenges are big”, new EESC president Georges Dassis told EUROPE in an interview. He reaffirmed that the Mediterranean remains a “priority region for our Committee” and all the more so given that “current events have major consequences for the citizens of the EU”.
The EU wants to engage in dialogue with structured civil society. This is one of the main intentions announced on 18 November through the publication of the revised version of the European neighbourhood policy (ENP) (see EUROPE 11433). The EU wants to associate civil society in decision-making by consulting it on all aspects of its action in the region. The EU has already done in the re-writing phase of the ENP - implementation of which is simply awaiting the green light of the member states. The Euro-Mediterranean ESC wants to speak out for civil society - which demands more transparency and to play a direct role.
The summit, which runs until Tuesday 1 December, is expected to enable “a response to this new version of the ENP” and is also expected to review the situation “20 years after the Barcelona statement”, said Dassis (see EUROPE 11440). “It's too early to judge the impact this new policy could have (…) We're pleased to see a public consultation has been organised” and it is “important that these online, unidirectional and indiscriminate consultations are transformed into a true (structured) dialogue”, Dassis said.
In his view, “civil society organisations are the fundamental actors in the dialogue for greater understanding to be developed”. Dassis also said that “it's crucial for civil society in Europe to put a lot into the defence of European values in the face of a possible security retreat”. And he added that “faced with the challenges now in front of us, we don't need less civil society - quite the opposite, we need much more. The repeated mention of civil society in the new ENP is welcome. But we need to understand by this, stronger and more representative organisations, more social dialogue, more civil dialogue and more stable consultation and dialogue structures. All Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) countries also need to really engage in this step. The EESC, for its part, will continue its work in this direction.”
Dassis said he is convinced that “the dialogue with the neighbourhood countries must have the construction of peace as the end goal - in other words, the prevention of conflicts, the reduction of gender inequality, economic and social development, and energy security”. In his view, this dialogue should also include climate and environmental challenges, job creation for young people and “giving regional responses on immigration”.
The role of the social partners in the consolidation of political democracy and in the migration challenge is on the agenda of ESC summit. As part of the new ENP, “it will be important for the EU to stress subjects such as freedom of expression, of assembly and of the press in its relations with the neighbourhood countries”, said Dassis. On the issue of refugees, he called for the ENP to guarantee “the absolute respect of refugees' rights to asylum and international protection when they leave their country through fear of persecution”. “A true neighbourhood policy should give the means to protect human rights defenders in all the countries of the region”, he said.
At the end of the summit, a final statement will be published and sent to political authorities. The statement will associate civil society. (Original version in French by Fathi B'Chir)