Brussels, 14/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The conference organised on 8 and 9 November in Brussels by the European Economic and Social Committee in the context of the debates on reforming European governance means and on the future of Europe (see EUROPE of 7 November, p;18) ended with undeniable support for active participation from the Committee at the next Convention in the capacity of permanent advisory member. "This conference provides an opportunity to decompartmentalise the institutional discussion and to open the way to new forms of democratic participation", said Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Mobility and Transport, Isabelle Durant, as work opened. She stressed the importance of "defining a European project so that citizens are convinced the EU is not simply regional aid to globalisation". The European Commissioner responsible for institutional reform, Michel Barnier, pointed out for his part that "the Committee would be an active observer at the Convention". He noted "three facts of topical importance: social and political and citizen uncertainty, which give not only the Committee but also the EU as a whole new reasons for acting". Giorgio Napolitano, President of the EP Committee on Constitutional Affairs, recalled that the "role of the Committee as representative of organised civil society had been clarified and legitimised by the new Article 257 of the EU Treaty approved in Nice". Former Committee President, Beatrice Rangoni-Machiavelli, remarked that "the Committee may provide the other institutions with a platform for consensus even on controversial issues, while taking the general interests of Europe into account".
Orchestrated by Jérôme Vignon, main counsellor responsible for European governance at the European Commission, the round table on the "organised civil society, participatory democracy and reform of the modes of European governance" stressed the need to: - specify the terms used such as "organised civil society" or "social dialogue"; - better define the roles and attributions of the institutions; - complete the work carried out in the context of the White Paper on European governance and the Charter of Fundamental Rights; - take into account the structure and the organisation of the civil society of candidate countries during the enlargement process; - and assess the representativeness of the groups. The spokesperson for the Permanent Forum of Civil Society, Pier Virgilio Dastoli, specified that "the Committee could be a facilitator for civil dialogue, and not represent it, because the civil society goes beyond economic and social issues. The Committee remains the expression of the economic and social world". He recalled that "one has never envisaged replacing participatory and representative democracy but rather completing it. The Permanent Forum of Civil Society, in this capacity, launched the Charter of Participatory Democracy, which is to be on the agenda of the Laeken Summit".
The following conclusions can be drawn from the three workshops that followed: 1) the joint responsibility of actors of the organised civil society with the responsibility for developing regulations remaining in the hands of the institutions. The role of the organised civil society in the legislative process is important as it makes the decision-making process more open and transparent but also more receptive to the changes in the outside world; 2) the representativeness of civil society organisation: the Committee must clarify its structure and its composition. The criteria for representativeness, that is, who must and how must one take part in the decision-making process of the EU, must be clarified; 3) civil dialogue: aims, modalities, structures, participants: the Commission does not hold a monopoly on civil dialogue within the European institutions but is the body that institutionalises dialogue. It therefore has an essential role to play in this context. The question is that of knowing how to make the Committee a real instrument for activating civil dialogue. It could, above all, make up a place of representation of some groups or categories of society that do not have sufficient political means of expression.
Drawing the conclusions from the work, Committee President Göke Frerichs stressed the Committee's ambition to be involved in the debate on the future of Europe. He noted that "in this context, it was necessary to reach consensus at EU level on three dimensions - identity, constitution and politics - which are independent". As far as the Committee's participation as a permanent consultative member at the next IGC is concerned, Mr Frerichs noted the constructive role of the Committee which, "as such, would make its institutional structure available to the network of civil society organisations in Europe which legitimately wish to be heard and which are not represented within it".