A Beating Heart for a Better Europe | EU Semester Alliance video "Enabling civil-society to participate in the shaping of EU policies”

A Beating Heart for a Better Europe | EU Semester Alliance video “Enabling civil-society to participate in the shaping of EU policies”

February 5, 2015

[Brussels, 2 February 2015] Today, the EU Alliance for a democratic, social and sustainable European Semester (EU Semester Alliance) releases A Beating Heart for a Better Europe. This video highlights the EU Semester Alliance main activities, benefits and learning, particularly incorporating the views of the national level and external stakeholders. The EU Semester Alliance is a broad cross-sectoral coalition bringing together 16 major European civil-society organisations and trade unions, representing thousands of member organisations on the ground at European, national and local levels in the European Union. The ‘Semester Alliance’ aims to support progress towards a more democratic, social and sustainable Europe 2020 Strategy, through strengthening civil dialogue engagement in the European Semester at national and EU levels. The Alliance has received financial support from the European Commission under a 1 year Joint Actions call, under the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation ‘Easi’ (2014-20) “At a moment when we have this huge trust deficit in the European Union, The Alliance and the involvement of the grassroots organisations as networks in the European Union have become an essential voice in making sure that the decisions that are made have been talked about, are understood, have real input and that should really help the quality of decision making” – Jean LAMBERT, MEP (Greens/EFA) “The Alliance has a really important role to play, an organization like the Alliance that represents so many different strands of society and that effectively represents them, that’s like gold dust for the likes of me” – Marian HARKIN, MEP (ALDE) “The Alliance has highlighted the validity and potential of the Europe 2020 Agenda for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth for delivering the kind of society and economy the EU wants and needs, and the crucial role that civil society and trade unions can play.. However, we are very concerned that this potential has been seriously undermined by a lack of clear political commitments to the goals and targets of the Strategy, and the increasingly weak priority given to Europe 2020 in the European Semester process, as well as the low priority given to stakeholder engagement. We are calling on the new European Commission to set this right.” – Barbara Helfferich, Chair of the Alliance. Watch the video here