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Borragán, Nieves Pérez-Solórzano; Smismans, Stijn --- "The European Economic and Social Committee after Enlargement" [2008] ELECD 275; in Best, Edward; Christiansen, Thomas; Settembri, Pierpaolo (eds), "The Institutions of the Enlarged European Union" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: The Institutions of the Enlarged European Union

Editor(s): Best, Edward; Christiansen, Thomas; Settembri, Pierpaolo

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847203458

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: The European Economic and Social Committee after Enlargement

Author(s): Borragán, Nieves Pérez-Solórzano; Smismans, Stijn

Number of pages: 22

Extract:

8. The European Economic and Social
Committee after enlargement
Nieves Pérez-Solórzano Borragán and Stijn
Smismans

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) was created by the
Rome Treaty as an advisory committee to the European Commission and
the Council of Ministers. It was thought at the time that decision-making in
the socio-economic areas delegated to the EEC would profit from the advice
of a committee composed of the main sectoral interests in these areas, such
as management, labour, craft, and agricultural organizations. The institu-
tional set-up of the EESC has not been substantially changed since, but the
Committee has had to compete increasingly with other fora of consultation
which have often proved more efficient access channels for the interest
groups concerned, such as specialized advisory committees in specific
sectors, the European social dialogue procedure or ­ simply ­ direct lobby-
ing of the main Community institutions. By the end of the 1990s, the EESC
attempted (again1) to reinvent itself, this time by stressing its role as repre-
sentative of organized civil society in a European Union ever more in search
of legitimacy (Smismans 2000, 2004, pp. 123­82). It is in this institutional
context that one should place the EESC's adjustment to the EU's eastward
enlargement since 2004.2 Like all EU institutions the EESC had to integrate
a high number of new members from countries with a considerably different
political, socio-economic and cultural background. Yet the main changes
that have occurred ...