Main News

2015-07-10 12:00

Today, the European Commission’s advisory Platform for tax good governance held its 7th meeting. As a member of the platform, CESI participated in this meeting, which featured in particular debate with Heinz Zourek (chief of the Commission’s DG TAXUD and chair of the platform) on the Commission’s recently issued Tax Transparency Package and its Action Plan on Corporate Taxation published last month.

2015-07-08 12:00

Today, the European Parliament plenary adopted its long-awaited report on recommendations to the Commission on the TTIP negotiations. The final report explicitly calls to exclude public services from an agreement with the USA. CESI, which represents numerous national trade unions from different fields of the public sector, very much welcomes the report: It marks a further step in CESI’s successful campaign to keep the public services out of TTIP and thereby ensure that quality services of general interest can be provided in Europe in the absence of TTIP-induced harmful liberalisation and privatisation pressures.

2015-07-07 12:00

In June, Matthäus Fandrejewski – the lead representative of CESI’s youth organisation, the CESI Youth – was honoured by the German Federal President Joachim Gauck for his outstanding voluntary work for the CESI Youth and other organisations and institutions. CESI says: “Congratulations, Matthäus, you deserve this recognition!”

2015-07-06 12:00

Commentary by CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger. In the context of the Greek crisis showdown and recent broader political developments in Europe, Klaus Heeger recalls that time has come to finally make monetary policy and economic governance fair and socially just. Not only with regards to Greece, but Europe at large.

2015-07-01 12:00

Today, the European Commission withdrew its legislative proposal for a revised maternity leave directive. For CESI, which during the past months fought hard against a withdrawal, this is not only a disappointing sign for all young and prospective mothers. It is also a huge missed opportunity for the EU to show that it is also about making actual improvements to the life of its citizens. CESI now eagerly awaits a new initiative by the Commission.

2015-06-30 12:00

Today, CESI submitted its response to the European Commission’s first-phase social partner consultation on a consolidation of the EU directives on information and consultation of workers. As a European umbrella organisation representing numerous national public administration trade unions, this consultation is of particular importance to CESI.

2015-06-26 12:00

On June 25-26, more than 150 participants from CESI’s various member organisations gathered in Dublin for the 2015 edition of CESI’s Europe Academy, this time themed ‘Better anticipate changes and restructuring in public administrations in Europe: the role played by the information and consultation of workers’. During the two-day symposium, expert speakers of various backgrounds discussed why and how restructuring processes in public administrations need to take better account of the employees’ perspectives. The conference took place timely against the backdrop of current work both in the European Commission and CESI at EU social partner level to create an EU-wide right to information & consultation of central administration workers, especially in restructuring processes.

2015-06-23 12:00

Today, June 23, is International Public Services Day. This year, in Europe, the day takes place – once again – in a time of austerity and continued and widespread cuts in public administrations’ budgets and public servants. In this context, CESI, as a European trade union federation representing several million public sector workers, believes that it is time to recall the valuable role public sector workers play in making improvements in society.

2015-06-19 12:00

The EU Alliance for a democratic, social and sustainable European Semester -also called ‘Semester Alliance-’ addressed a letter yesterday to Heads of States and top EU officials ahead of the EU Council next 25 & 26 June on the endorsement of the 2015 Country-Specific Recommendations (CSRs). The Semester Alliance highlights that the EU has failed to deliver an inclusive recovery strategy and that immediate action is needed to bring Europe 2020 back on track with all its initial goals.

2015-06-18 12:00

In the context of its membership at the European Movement International (EMI), CESI has contributed to the EMI blog on the European Year for Development (EYD) 2015 with an article on fair taxation for development, a topic very close to its heart.

2015-06-17 12:00

Today, the European Commission published its long-awaited roadmap for fairer corporate taxation in Europe. Unfortunately, CESI’s hopes that the Commission would publish an action plan that is worthy of its name was to a large extent disappointed. Less procrastination is required with regards to the introduction of a common corporate consolidated tax base (CCCTB) and concrete proposals for an encompassing country-by-country reporting system are needed to enable tax administrations to effectively collect all due corporate taxes. Otherwise, multinationals will continue to make profits at the expense of the citizen-taxpayers; tax injustice would remain.

2015-06-16 12:00

Today, the CESI Board unanimously endorsed applications for membership by CNV-Connectief, a major Dutch trade union representing teachers, civil servants and healthcare personnel and SPELC, a French teachers’ trade union. This extends CESI’s representativeness by almost 150,000 individual members. Welcome, CNV-Connectief and SPELC!

2015-06-11 12:00

On Tuesday this week, the European Parliament adopted a resolution that calls for an ambitious action plan to succeed the EU gender equality strategy 2010-2015. Along with other social stakeholders, CESI welcomes this resolution, which, even if non-binding, further increases the pressure on the European Commission to come forward with a powerful communication on a renewed EU gender equality strategy after the summer.

2015-06-10 12:00

Yesterday [June 9], the European Commission’s college of commissioners held an orientation debate to establish how the EU can best address existing employment challenges in Europe. CESI’s welcomes this orientation debate whole-heatedly, believing that a fundamental debate to kick-start major EU action on quality employment has been overdue in crisis-ridden Europe. At the same time, CESI highlights the importance of having this debate followed by concrete and substantial policy proposals that are worked out together with the social partners and boost quality employment as much as the EU competences in the field of employment and social affairs allow.

2015-06-09 12:00

In the context of the announcement by the European Commission that it will withdraw its maternity leave directive proposal if no progress is made on the file in negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers by this summer, the President of CESI’s Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Commission (FEMM), Kirsten Lühmann, today called on the EU Member State governments to stop their blockade of the file in the Council of Ministers and finally start negotiating with the European Parliament.