This situation, which can be found in most countries of the European Union, is all the more worthy of concern that it appears not only to be irreversible but also likely to worsen.

A solution proposed by Roman Herzog would be to reinforce the powers of the European Parliament to make it a real legislative assembly and to create two chambers within the Council of Ministers when it elaborates legislative texts: this second chamber would have the mission to verify if the European union does not go beyond the powers that are assigned to it by the Treaty.

In any case, the crushing preponderance of new national legislation originating from Brussels rather than from the national parliaments, illustrated again here, justify the importance of the lobbying mission of the European cooperative organisations based in Brussels and now institutionally gathered in Cooperative Europe, including CECOP for our sector.

But the fundamental weight of the Council of ministers (and not only of the Commission) in this process of adoption of laws requires a lobbying work that is increasingly well coordinated between CECOP in Brussels and its members in the different European countries. This is probably an endeavour that we should try to improve together in 2007.

CECOP Calendar |
18/01/07 | CECOP online executive committee | |
26/02/07 | “INVOLVE” project: 1st monitoring committee (to be confirmed)| |
27/02/07 | CECOP Board (Brussels)| |
29/03/07 | “INVOLVE” project: 3rd steering committee and 2nd monitoring committee | |
30/03/07 | CECOP General Assembly | |
15/05/07 | CECOP online executive committee | |
29/05/07 | “INVOLVE” project: 4th steering committee and 3rd monitoring committee | |
26/06 or 30/06/07 | CECOP Board in Prague - TO BE CONFIRMED | |
28/06/07 | Cooperatives Europe general assembly - Prague | |
29/06/07 | Third European Cooperative Convention on social Dialogue (Cooperatives Europe) - Prague | | 10/07/07 | CECOP online executive committee (If no board in Prague) | |
27/09/07 | CECOP executive committee (online or in Brussels - to be confirmed) in preparation of the next board | |
27/09/07 | “INVOLVE” project: 5th steering committee and 4th monitoring committee | |
27-28/09/07 | “INVOLVE” project final conference - Brussels | |
25/10/07 | “INVOLVE” project: 6th steering committee and 5th monitoring committee - last project meeting | | 26/10/07 | CECOP Board - Brussels | |
28/11/07 | Online executive committee |