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European Economic and Social Committee
Brussels, 9 September 2005MINUTES
of the 5th meeting
of the Liaison Group
with European civil society organisations and networks
held at the Committee building in Brussels
on
7 July 2005
______
CESE 933/2005 FR/CVL/GW/ht
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The fifth meeting of the Liaison Group with European civil society organisations and networks was held in Brussels on 7 July 2005, under the chairmanship of Anne-Marie Sigmund, EESC president, and Giampiero Alhadeff, co-chair of the Liaison Group.
The meeting commenced at 9.45 a.m. and finished at 12.30 p.m.
*
* *
ATTENDANCE LIST
· Members of the Liaison Group
EESC Representatives
- Members
Ms Anne-Marie SigmundMr Georgios Dassis
Mr Bernardo Hernandez Bataller
Mr Henri Malosse
Mr Staffan Nilsson
Mr Giacomo Regaldo / EESC President
President of the ECO section
President of the INT section
President of the SOC section
Group III President
Group I President
- Alternates
Mr Hans-Joachim Wilms Vice-president of the NAT section
(alternate for Mr Jose Maria Espuny Moyano,
president of the NAT section)
Representatives of European civil society organisations and networks
- Members
Mr Giampiero AlhadeffMr Patrick De Bucquois
Mr Henrik Kröner
Mr William Lay
Ms Mary McPhail
Mr Jim Murray
Mr Gérard Peltre
Mr Daniel Spoel / Board Member, European NGO Confederation for Relief and Development (CONCORD)
General Secretary, European Council for Non-Profit Organisations (CEDAG)
Secretary-General, European Movement International (EMI)
Director, Confederation of Family Organisations in the EU (COFACE)
Secretary-General, European Women’s Lobby (EWL/LEF)
Director, European Consumers' Organisation (BEUC)
President, Rurality-Environment-Development international association (RED)
Administrator, Permanent Forum of Civil Society
- Alternates
Ms Carlotta BesozziMr Patrice Collignon
Ms Jacqueline De Groote
Mr Diogo Pinto
Ms Ariane Rodert / Director, European Disability Forum (FEPH/EDF) (for Yannis Vardakastanis)
Director, Rurality-Environment-Development international association (RED) (for Gérard Peltre)
Administrator, Permanent Forum of Civil Society (alternate for Mr Daniel Spoel)
Secretary-general, European Youth Forum (FEJ/EYF)
(for Renaldas Vaisbrodas)
Swedish Forum for Voluntary Social Work (on behalf of ETWelfare) (for Patrick De Bucquois)
· Liaison Group members (apologies received)
EESC representatives
Ms Ann Davison (apologies received)Mr José María Espuny Moyano
(apologies received)
Mr Alexander Graf von Schwerin
Mr Mario Sepi (apologies received) / President of the REX section
President of the NAT section
President of the TEN section
President of Group II
Representatives of European civil society organisations and networks (apologies received)
- Members
Mr Tommaso Grimaldi(apologies received)
Mr Ron Hendriks
Ms Ilona Kish
(apologies received)
Mr Etienne Pfimlin
Mr Renaldas Vaisbrodas (apologies received)
Mr Yannis Vardakastanis
(apologies received) / General Secretary, European Vocational Training Association (EVTA), Education and civil society platform
President of the International Association of Mutual Benefit Societies (AIM)
Secretary-General, European Forum for the Arts and Heritage (FEAP/EFAH))
President, Coordinating Committee of European Cooperative Associations (CCACE)
President, European Youth Forum (FEJ/EYF)
President, European Disability Forum (FEPH/EDF)
- Alternates
Mr Olivier Consolo
Ms Sabina Frank
(apologies received)
Mr Gérard Leseul
Mr Willy Palm
(apologies received)
Mr Jean-Marc Roirant
/ Director, European NGO Confederation for Relief and Development (CONCORD)
European Affairs Officer, European Forum for the Arts and Heritage (FEAP/EFAH) (for Ilona Kish)
Deputy General Delegate, Coordinating Committee of European Cooperative Associations (CCACE)
Director, International Association of Mutual Benefit Societies (AIM)
Secretary-General, Ligue française de l'enseignement et de l'éducation permanente, (French League for Permanent Education) Education and civil society platform
Other EESC representatives
Mr Miklos BarabasMr Luca Jahier
Mr Luis Miguel Pariza / EESC member (alternate for Mr Staffan Nilsson)
EESC member, member of representativeness of European civil society organisations in the civil dialogue
(Item 7 on the agenda)
EESC member, president of the Citizens for Europe study group
(Item 6 on the agenda)
· Experts
Mr Dirk JARRÉ
Ms Charlotte ROFFIAEN / Expert to the EESC President, Ms Anne-Marie Sigmund
Group III expert for the Citizens for Europe study group (Item 6 on the agenda)
European Commission
Private Office of Ms Dalia Grybauskaité, Commissioner in charge of the Budget
Mr Denis GENTONBudget DG
Mr Philippe TAVERNE
Mr Gary MILLER
Ms Sandrine DELAUDE
Mr James SPENCE / Member of private office
Director of Central Financial Service at DG Budget
Financial Regulations Unit
Financial Regulations Unit
Advisor to the Director-General, Luis Romero Requena
Europe-Aid Cooperation Office (AIDCO)
Mr Francesco de AngelisMr Raul MATEUS PAULA
Mr Laurent SARAZIN
Education and Culture DG
Mr Pascal LEJEUNE
Ms Stéphanie VADDÉ / Director at Directorate – General Operations Support
Head of Financial and Contractual Matters and Legal Affairs Unit
Financial and Contractual Matters and Legal Affairs Unit
Head of Budget Programming and Coordination Unit
Civil Society: Partnerships and Visits Unit
Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities DG
Mr François CASANA / Budget, Financial Coordination UnitHealth and Consumer Protection DG
Mr Michal ZYRNICKIGeneral Secretariatl
Mr Peter HANDLEY
Mr Jens NYMAND CHRISTENSEN
Ms Lea VATANEN
Mr Matthew BROWN / Financial Resources and Controls Unit
Head of Administrative and Budget Policy Coordination Unit
Director of Directorate – Relations with Civil Society
Directorate – Relations with Civil Society, Transparency and Civil Society Unit
Directorate – Relations with Civil Society, Transparency and Civil Society Unit
· Observers
Ms Monica ALFAROMs Tamsin ROSE
Mr Donál WALSHE / Manager for Legal Affairs and Institutional Relations, Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union (GPUE-PGEU)
Secretary-General, European Public Health Alliance (EPHA)
Secretary-General, European community of consumer cooperatives (EURO-COOP)
EESC Secretariat
Mr Patrick FÈVE / Head of the Unit for Relations with Civil Society Organisations, Constitutional Issues*
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1. Adoption of the draft agenda
The draft agenda was adopted.
2. Approval of the minutes of the fourth meeting held on 13 May 2005
Under item 5 (exchange of views with Beate Gminder) the following paragraph should be added to the contribution of Patrick de Bucquois:
"He also stated that the presentation of a Green Paper rather than a White Paper on the Communications Strategy seemed to him to have been more appropriate, as this could have enabled a broader discussion with all the parties concerned and not been biased against the proposed action which, in all probability, should have been included in the White Paper."
The minutes thus modified were approved.
3. Statement by the EESC President, Anne-Marie Sigmund and the Liaison Group Co-chair, Giampiero Alhadeff
Statement by the EESC President
While the Liaison Group had reached the half-way point of the experimental two-year phase set out by the EESC Bureau, Anne-Marie Sigmund believed that the meetings and the work carried out to date should be viewed in a positive light and added that she was delighted with the new synergies that had been established between the Committee and the European civil society organisations via the Liaison Group. She invited the Liaison Group members to put forward any suggestions that could help improve its effectiveness and increase its added value.
Anne-Marie Sigmund drew attention to the fact that a report on the Liaison Group's activity would be drawn up before the end of her term of office in September 2006 to assess its role and contribution to the realisation of the objectives that had led to its creation. The coming months would therefore be of crucial importance.
Continuing with this theme, she viewed the reference made to the Liaison Group in the new Cooperation Protocol to be signed with the European Commission as a positive development and as an encouragement on the part of this institution to continue with such cooperation between the EESC and organised European civil society and to widen the Liaison Group's field of activity.
Anne-Marie Sigmund then announced that she had suggested to Margot Wallström, at a meeting held on 4 July, that the Liaison Group could cooperate in the Commission's preparation for its White Paper on the communication strategy on Europe. She added that she would discuss a number of initiatives that could be presented to Margot Wallström with the group's co-president, Giampiero Alhedeff, so as to ensure that the viewpoint of civil society was taken into account more. These proposals would also be discussed within the Liaison Group.
Statement by the co-chair of the Liaison Group
Giampiero Alhadeff spoke about the discussions that had taken place between Liaison Group members from European civil society organisations and networks at the preparatory meeting on 30 June to emphasise the consensus view of the participants that the Liaison Group represented a very useful instrument for initiating dialogue with the European institutions on a regular basis and a more structured form of cooperation with the Committee.
The same participants also agreed that the failure of the ratification process of the Constitutional Treaty in France and in the Netherlands called for a more appropriate response on the part of all the stakeholders concerned, and made it all the more necessary to set up a strategic partnership between civil society organisations and the European institutions if one wanted to send out a European message and move the debate forward on the future of Europe.
Giampiero Alhadeff also informed the Liaison Group of the launch by SOLIDAR, IFIAS and New Europe of a campaign entitled "Citizens' key to Europe" – a campaign supported by more than thirty civil society networks and organisations – and which aimed to demonstrate the support of these organisations for the initiatives of the Commission vice-president, MargotWallström, to achieve greater participatory democracy in Europe and their desire to take an active part in its implementation.
4. Proposals for changes to the operating rules of the Liaison Group
The President informed the Liaison Group that at its meeting on 7 June, the Bureau had authorised the group and section presidents to each appoint one of their vice-presidents to represent them at Liaison Group meetings, should they be unable to attend.
Accordingly, the Liaison Group members adopted a proposal to make the following amendment to the operating rules of the Liaison Group concerning alternates:
Members of the Liaison Group from European civil society organisations and networks have the right to appoint an alternate who can represent them at meetings, should they be unable to attend.
Accordingly, the president informed the Liaison Group of her decision to appoint Roger Briesch, EESC vice-president, as her alternate.
5. NGOs and the revision of the Financial Regulation
Mr Philippe Taverne, Director of the Central Financial Service at DG Budget at the Commission, gave a brief summary of the origins of the Financial Regulation in place since 2002 and of the very significant changes which it introduced into the Commission's operating methods regarding the role and responsibility of stakeholders. He emphasised that its application had led to the decentralisation of financial control and to the creation of an internal audit function and Central Financial Service within DG Budget, and had, above all, resulted in a cultural change in the field of financial management and administration within the Commission's services and, more generally speaking, within all of the institutions as a whole, changes that the institutions had had to adapt to very quickly. Moreover, it had also represented a very important effort in the field of training and recruitment of specialised staff.
Philippe Taverne believed that over time, the Commission had become aware of the fact that the procedures for the implementation of the Financial Regulation were often too burdensome given the amounts involved, something which was particularly true of so-called small-scale contracts and subsidies.
The three-year review, the principle of which was enshrined in the Financial Regulation, pursued a major objective; namely, that of greater proportionality between the burdens imposed by the financial controls and audits and the financial risks involved, especially in the case of small-scale contracts and grants for which important reductions and simplifications were proposed. This was one of the reasons for which the Commission, in its proposal for the revision of the Financial Regulation adopted on 3 May, outlined important reduction measures in the field of preliminary verification and control.
The Commission also proposed, in particular:
· the rule on interest payments would no longer apply for pre-financing payments below a certain level. The exact amount would be set when revising the implementing rules of the Financial Regulation;
· fixed rates and ceilings would be introduced as an ordinary payment method for grants, which would mean an important simplification in the procedure for requesting and terminating grants;
· for small-scale grants paid on a fixed rate basis, the ‘non-profit’ rule, which was currently a general rule for obtaining grants, would no longer be applied. The ceiling amount would also be fixed by the Commission;
· increased opportunities regarding contributions in kind for beneficiaries of Community joint-financing: a contribution in kind, which was currently an exception rule, would soon become a general rule. A beneficiary would therefore be able to claim that its part of the joint financing represented a contribution in kind.
In October 2004, the Commission had proposed that audit reports would only be mandatory for grants of more than EUR 750,000. This proposal would become effective at the end of July 2005. The Commission was also hoping to introduce a system for the self-certification of payments in the near future. However, these simplification measures, stressed PhilippeTaverne, would be subject to a risk analysis by the official in charge of overseeing expenditure, who would decide whether it would be possible to apply them in the given situation.
Philippe Taverne then outlined the procedure and timetable for the adoption of the proposed revision:
· 4 July 2005: start of the procedure through the submission to the Council of the Commission's proposal in the twenty official languages of the EU. In the accompanying letter, the Commission invited the Council to consult the EESC on an optional basis.
· The Council must consult the European Parliament and the Court of Auditors. The Commission would send a request for an opinion to all the other institutions following the political commitment that it made when adopting the implementing rules of the Financial Regulation.