On 27th March CEDAG member the Union of social profit enterprises (UNIPSO), organised a stakeholders meeting in Brussels within the project Promoting employers’ social services organisations in social dialogue (PESSIS).

The purpose of the PESSIS project, funded by the European Programme Industrial relations and Social dialogue, is to promote the participation of employers’ social services organisations in social dialogue in the national as well as in the European context.

The first step towards this long-term goal is a mapping on the organisation and the functioning of social dialogue in the eleven countries covered by the project partnership (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Finland, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, UK). The information and best practices gathered will feed into national reports which will then compiled into one European report by a European Researcher and assessed during the final Conference planned for June 2012.

On 16 March the Social Platform held an ad hoc meeting to discuss the draft report produced by Steinruck MEP of the Employment Committee, on the draft regulation for EUPSCI. The results of the discussions in this meeting have been sent to the Platform’s steering group which will meet on March 29th, and will propose an official platform response to the draft report.

The proposed EUPSCI is part of the European Commission’s proposals for the 2014-2020 EU budget - known as the multi annual financial framework, MAFF. It brings together two pre-existing programmes - “Progress” and EURES, and adds a new third strand, the micro finance initiative to support entrepreneurship. Progress is the largest component in terms of monetary investment, and is used to provide stable financing to civil society initiatives, while EURES is the EU’s attempt to promote workers mobility across international borders within the EU. The entire proposed budget for the EUPSCI is just under 1bn € over 7 years.

The final event in the series of workshops entitled open dialogue between institutions chances and challenges, was organised on 14th March in Brussels, as an opportunity to discuss the progress and the challenges still lying ahead in terms of civil dialogue.

Considering the progress made, some mechanisms of dialogue and new legal provisions (Lisbon Treat art.11) are in place today which represent an improvement to preceding conditions. Without detracting from the importance of these steps, a stronger and more coordinated effort is needed on the part of institutions and civil society if we are to reach the objective of an open transparent and regular dialogue.

The Liaison Group of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has set to work on an ambitious programme aiming to improve dialogue and collaboration between European institutions and organised civil society after its role being revamped in 2011. On 7th March a meeting was held to allow the European organisations members of Liaison Group to discuss on priority themes and prepare some of the planned initiatives.

The first part of the meeting was dedicated to the preparation of a Civil society day 2012 in May, an event which will be jointly organised by the Economic and social committee (EESC) and the Liaison Group. The programme, now still at the stage of a draft, will include two sessions and three workshops about participation of civil society in decision-making processes in light also of the current crisis and on how to implement article 11 of the TEU.