Organised civil society and European governance: the Committee's contribution to the drafting of the White Paper

CES 535/2001 FR-DE/MEV/JKB/ym, Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee, Brussels, 25 April 2001

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4.8

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This civil dialogue is also one form of governance, and the Committee feels that its aims, structures, procedures and participation criteria should be more closely examined and defined. An initial analysis containing proposed definitions can be found in its opinion "The Commission and non-governmental organisations: building a stronger partnership". Accordingly, the Committee feels that civil dialogue should have the following features:

- in principle, all members of organised civil society (and therefore the social partners, too) should participate in the civil dialogue;

- the civil dialogue should not take the place of or compete with the social dialogue, but provide an adjunct;

- the civil dialogue can be conducted between the representatives of organised civil society alone or between them and a Community body or institution; it can cover horizontal or vertical issues and thus take the form of either a general or sectoral dialogue;

- the civil dialogue should be provided with the structures which it requires to operate; its remit should be mainly in the socio-economic sector, apart from those areas covered by the social dialogue, but should also embrace the environment, consumer matters, development, human rights, culture and all other questions which are important for civil society in all its component parts;

- civil dialogue players should also be responsible for ensuring that non-EU countries and especially the applicant countries are familiarised with the organisational structures and forms of communication of organised civil society. These countries must also be helped to form or develop similar structures. The Committee has also already done considerable groundwork on defining the civil society organisations that are to participate in civil dialogue.