On Thursday 12 December 2019, CEEP held the fourth edition of its Public Services Summit. The whole-day event took place in Brussels, at the European Economic and Social Committee. On this occasion, CEEP welcomed, amongst others, Karl-Heinz Lambertz, President of the Committee of the Regions (CoR), Luca Jahier, President of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), MEPs Katrin Langensiepen and Anna Cavazzini, as well as various speakers from the European Commission, European Parliament, trade unions and civil society.
The event was opened by Rainer Plassmann, CEEP President, and Karl-Heinz Lambertz, who highlighted together the EU institutional renewal, the need to act on the key priorities for citizens, as well as the role of public services and services of general interest in this process.

The first morning panel of the Public Services Summit dealt with the important issues of Social Dialogue and the EU social agenda. The panel was composed of Milena Angelova, CEEP Vice-president, of Jörg Tagger, Head of Unit for Social Dialogue of the European Commission’s DG Employement, MEP Katrin Langensiepen, vice-chair of the EMPL committee and Lina Carr, ETUC confederal secretary.

In the second panel, in light of the European Commission’s freshly published Green Deal on 11 December, keynote speaker Stephen White, policy analyst at DG ENV, explained the Commission’s full engagement and focus to deliver the expectation of the Green Deal agenda over the next four years. In this discussion, the panel highlighted the vital role of Public Services and SGIs in achieving a climate-neutral Europe by 2050 in a sustainable way.

The 2019 Public Services Summit’s first afternoon panel welcomed Ruth Paserman, General Advisor in the Cabinet of Valdis Dombrovskis, Luca Jahier, President of the European Economic and Social Committee and MEP Anna Cavazzini (Greens, DE). The debate was extremely constructive, and panellists accurately brought to the table the key aspects that must be reflected upon when discussing a joint industrial strategy for Europe.

The concluding panel of the day addressed the state of democracy in the EU, and brought around the table Jacek Krawczyk, President of the Employers’ Group of the EESC, Petros Fassoulas, General Secretary of the European Movement International (EMI), and Tanja Rudolf, Advisor to the Director-General for Communication at the European Parliament.
Opening the session, Ms Rudolf presented the campaign of the European Parliament ahead of the May 2019 elections, which focused on 3 principles: a clear vision and narrative, the financial constraints, as well as the need to build connections.

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