Press Release: Margot Wallström: the Commission is ready to enhance EESC’s role

European Commissioner Wallström proposed a strong culture of cooperation for the relationship between the Commission and the EESC, a main topic of her speech at her first visit to the EESC plenary session in her new role as Vice-President of the European Commission on the 7 April 2005. She stressed the Committee's important role, notably in consolidating the Strategy for Growth and Employment. The Committee, she further insisted, can play 'a decisive role in targeting European messages to specific audiences' and is an important player in the EU's emerging overall communication strategy. She proposed to organise summits of civil society and called upon the EESC to help breathe life into the concept of participatory democracy.