Brussels, 06/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - In the context of the debates on reforming modes of European governance and on the future of Europe, the European Economic and Social Committee is organising, on 8 and 9 November in Brussels, a conference on the theme "the role of organised civil society in European governance". Committee President Göke Frerichs will open the session, and will be followed by Regional Policy Commissioner Michel Barner and by Giorgio Napolitano, Chair of the EP Committee on Constitutional Affairs. Isabelle Durant, Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister for Belgium, Fausto Capelli, Director of the European College in Parma, and Jacques Dermagne, President of the French Economic and Scoail Council, will bring the conference to a close.
Work will begin with a round table on the theme "Organised civil society, participatory democracy and the reform of modes of European governance", organised by Jérôme Vignon (European Commission). Those taking the floor include Bronislaw Geremek, former Polish Foreign Minister and a member of the Laeken Group (who assists Guy Verhofstadt in the preparation of the declaration on the future of Europe), as well as the Secretary General for the European Trade Union Confederation, Emilio Gabablio. Then, three workshops will be held on: 1) the shared responsibility of organised civil society players; 2) the representative nature of civil society organisations; and 3) civil dialogue: objectives, procedures, structures and participants. Speakers include: Daniela Israelachwili, Secretary General (acting) of the European Employers' Association (UNICE), Olivier Gerhard of the ATD Fourth World Movement, MEP Inigo Mendez de Vigo, and Elzbieta Sobotka, Consul General of Poland in Cologne. (Info.: Nick Foster, Committee in Brussels. Tel.: 02 546 92 07. E-mail: press@esc.eu.int).