The next CESI Congress, upcoming on December 2, will be under the following three themes:
• Digitalisation: Finding the balance
• Public services: Delivering results
• The future of Europe: Investing in people

The Europe Academy, CESI’s internal training centre, will conduct a year-long project on occupational health and safety. Landmark events will be seminars on ‘New working rhythms and their impact on health’ in Copenhagen on June 3 and on ‘Responsible players in the implementation of the occupational safety and health policy in the public sector in Europe: managers, trade unions, safety reps’ in Madrid on October 14.

The Trade Councils and Commissions, the specialised internal forums of debate for CESI’s member organisations, adopted the following action programmes:

• Employment and Social Affairs (SOC) Commission 
Quality employment: Fight against precariousness on the labour market
Adaptation to change: Preparation of employees to technological (and other) changes
Full employment: Youth unemployment and work-life balance

• Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) Commission 
Situation of women refugees
Strategy for gender equality
Equal treatment
Domestic violence

• Central Administration and Finances (ACF) Trade Council 
Social dialogue: Follow-up of the agreement on the rights to information and consultation of workers of central administrations signed on 21 December 2015
Digitalisation: Risks for the financing capacity of the social protection systems
Fight against tax fraud and tax evasion
The central importance (revalorisation) of central administrations in Europe
Dangers of austerity politics

• Local and Regional Administration (LRA) Trade Council 
Integration of refugees: Costs and consequences for the administrations, challenges for employees
Digitalisation: Processes and consequences for workplaces
Extension of the working life: Challenges and opportunities for workers above age 50

• Security (SEC) Trade Council
30 years of Schengen: Members States and accession states, refugees and migration issues, illegal trafficking, Schengen Information System (SIS), external borders control
Terrorism and new forms of criminality linked to refugee and migration issues
Labour protection in the police sector

• Education, Training, Research (EDUC) Trade Council
The challenges linked to the migration crisis
Teaching values in the fight against radicalisation
The inclusion of disabled students

• Health (SAN) Trade Council
Impacts of digitalisation: Bureaucracy?
Access to and quality of health services for migrant and ethnic minorities
Expert Panel on Effective Ways of Investing in Health (EXPH)
Working time directive: Follow-up of recent EU Court of Justice jurisdiction
Position of less educated workers

• Justice Trade Council
Impacts of the refugees crisis on the penitentiary system
Violence against justice employees
Right to strike of justice public employees and the establishment of an effective industrial relations dispute resolution machinery
Privatisations in the justice sector
Training and revised security arrangements for employees in the justice sector to properly deal with new challenges such as radicalisation

• Post and Telecoms (P&T) Trade Council
Digital Agenda
CEREST
Flexible work-planification
Extension of the Trade council to other member organisations

• Defence (DEF) Trade Council
Deployment of armed forces to solve the refugee crisis
Cuts in the defence budgets: Impacts on the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)
Political chances of intensified military cooperation efforts
Sovereignty options for European defence
Labour rights of civil and military employees of the defence sector
Gender equality in military forces

More information about the individual Trade Councils and Commissions can be accessed here. For the full calendar of CESI events, please consult the website’s calendar section.