To gain this EU-level insight, the EEAC invited relevant external speakers to share their perspectives on the upcoming years. Thanks to their different professional backgrounds Patrizia Heidegger (EEB), Hans Bruyninckx (Universtiy of Antwerp), and Héctor Sánchez Margalef (CIDOB) could contribute valuable approaches and recommendations, which informed the later strategic discussions. Their input mainly revolved around the future of the Green Deal, identifying the most pressing and promising areas for green policy developments, and how councils and the EEAC can work effectively within this changing landscape and not against it.
During brainstorming sessions, participants actively engaged with the strengths and weaknesses of their councils and the opportunities and challenges posed by the projected European policy developments in the coming years. Additionally, questions regarding preferred network activity formats were debated, best practices for specific topics were shared, and opportunities for possible collaborations on topics such as global public health, better regulation, sufficiency, and the circular economy were identified.
The key results of these strategic deliberations are captured in writing in an internal strategic paper on the Network's priorities. This strategic paper will be discussed during the Annual Plenary Session at the end of November and will then serve as a guide to the activities of the network in the upcoming five years.
The strategic assembly marked a meaningful step forward for the EEAC Network in fulfilling its purpose as a knowledge exchange platform for advisory bodies to share ideas on how to best give independent, science-based advice to policymakers under ever changing circumstances.
