EESC concludes its term of office emphasising the valuable contribution of organised civil society to the European project

• Luca Jahier, president of the EESC since April 2018, expressed his gratitude to all of the members and highlighted the important contribution of the civil society organisations represented at the EESC to the European project.
• The EESC said goodbye to 135 of its current members yesterday during its September plenary session, the last of the 2015-2020 term.
• In October, a new five-year term will start under a new presidency and the partial renewal of the members.
• The outgoing president, Luca Jahier, took stock of the work done during his term of office, which started in April 2018 with a call for a second European Renaissance or "rEUnaissance".
• He expressed the hope that the EESC could take an active part in the Conference on the Future of Europe proposed by the European Commission and the European Parliament.

Institutional support

• I'm looking forward to cooperating closely with you at the Conference on the Future of Europe.
• The EESC has an important role to play in feeding into the debate, said Ms von der Leyen.
• Mr Sassoli also expressed his willingness to work more closely with the EESC to create a structured dialogue with organised civil society.
• He also proposed that the taboo of neutral communication should be broken, as controversy and disagreement will create more energy.

Future steps

• Under the rotating system of the EESC, the new president will come from the Employers' Group and will hold the position for two and a half years.
• The EESC plenary will also appoint two vice-presidents chosen from each of the two other groups in rotation, one from the Workers' Group who will be responsible for the budget and one from the Diversity Europe Group in charge of communication.

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