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Meeting of the delegation of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) with representatives of Ukraine’s civil society
The European programme of the International Renaissance Foundation jointly with the Delegation of the European Commission to Ukraine organised a meeting of the delegation of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) headed by President of the Committee Anne-Marie Sigmund with representatives of Ukraine’s civil society. From Ukrainian side more than 30 persons representatives of non-governmental organisations, trade unions, and business associations participated in the event which took place on 24 June in premises of the European Business Association.
The aim of the meeting was to find ways to promote dialogue and cooperation between Ukraine’s civil society and EESC. On the one hand the meeting allowed representatives of the EESC to become informed about situation with Ukraine’s civil society, its challenges, whishes, cooperation with EU organisations, etc. On the other hand, EESC delegation had an opportunity to explain what the EESC is doing and what its role among the EU Institutions in Brussels is, what the EESC is doing and planning to do concerning Ukraine.
"It’s not just the task of the Government to implement the EU-UA Action Plan, said Ms Anne-Marie Sigmund, President of the EESC, but the responsibility of society as a whole. Without the involvement of all actors, the government can not succeed. Our goal is to help civil society of Ukraine to play its role in the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Action Plan".
"Concretely we want to come back to Ukraine in order to hold a civil society seminar with our Ukrainian counterparts to discuss how best to go about this task", -said Ms.Karin Alleweldt, Chairwoman of the EESC’s Contact Group on Eastern European Neighbours. "Without prejudging the results of this roundtable, we want to build up networks of regular dialogue with Ukrainian counterparts in order to channel our experience of how to effectively interact with government to Ukrainian Civil Society; and in particular we aim to create a platform to reflect and monitor the progress in the EU-Ukraine partnership.
Ukrainian participants, on their part, shared their thoughts concerning present stage of the civil society in Ukraine, in particular relations with the government, process of internal reforms in the state and the agenda for development of relations between Ukraine and the EU. The participants pointed out several problems, among them – lack of institutional mechanisms of cooperation between the government and civil society, discrepancy between rhetorics and actions of the government, and also lack of coordination of activities within the civil society. On participants’ opinion, learning from the experience of EU member states in above mentioned issues is of high importance, and the European Economic and Social Committee can be favourable to it. Also participants underlined the importance of increasing the number of programmes stimulating development of people-to-people contacts Ukraine-EU, and softening the visa regime. The discussion was unconstrained and open, and lasted one and a half hour longer than expected.
Background: The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) is a non-political body that gives representatives of Europe's socio-occupational interest groups, and others, a formal platform to express their points of views on EU issues. Its opinions are forwarded to the larger institutions the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament. It thus has a key role to play in the European Union's decision-making process. The 317 members of the EESC represent three groups: employers, employees and "various interests", thus, the Committee serves as a "bridge" between the EU and organised civil society.
The EESC Delegation has been visiting Ukraine for the first time on June 23-25, during the visit members of the delegation met first Deputy Prime Minister A.Kinakh, Deputy Prime Minister O.Rybachuk, Deputy Foreign Minister A.Buteyko, Deputy Minister of Economy V.Ignaschenko, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs V.Kyrylenko, Ombudswoman N.Karpachova.
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