EESC, ESDN and EEAC: CONFERENCE ‘Next steps for a sustainable European future – Reforming Europe, implementing SDGs . 7 July 2016
With the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015, the United Nations has set out an unprecedented action plan to fight poverty and inequalities worldwide while respecting planetary boundaries. Achieving these goals will be challenging for European countries as well as for the EU as a whole. The Commission announced it would take action in 2016 to define next steps for a sustainable European future and unveil a new approach, ensuring Europe’s economic prosperity and social and environmental sustainability beyond 2020 in order to implement the SDGs.
The European Economic and Social Committee together with the EEAC Network and the ESDN contributed to this reflection with a conference on “Next steps for a sustainable European future – Reforming Europe, implementing SDGs” wich took place on 7 July 2016 in Brussels.
The conference provided an open dialogue with FVP Timmermans on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Europe. The sessions and the interactive workshops on sustainable consumption and production, social justice and decent work, sustainable business and investment and on global partnership and peace produced a series of interesting policy recommendations from a civil society perspective. The final session featured Karl Falkenberg’s first presentation of his report to the Commission President on ways to strengthen sustainable development in the EU and was followed by an in-depth debate.
The conference outcomes will be communicated to the Commission .
The workshop conclusions can be found here: Conclusions