The Conference of INGOs of the Council of Europe

The Conference of INGOs enjoying participatory status constitutes, since 2005, civil society’s pillar in the Council of Europe “quadrilogue” with the Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities.

As you are probably already aware, the Social Economy Intergroup has been relaunched following the newly-elected European Parliament members.
This Intergroup, which provides the opportunity for Social Economy stakeholders to expose their expectations, critics and positions to representatives of the European institutions as well as to members of different political groups inside the European Parliament, was already established in 1990.

According to CEDAG/FAMNA joint seminar, organized on November 24, 2009 in Stockholm, the impact of EU policies and regulations on the provision of social and health services has increased over the last years. Social services of general interest are often regarded as economic activities and therefore fall under EU competition and internal market regulations.

In the continuation to the Missing Link project (2006/07), which identified major cross-sectoral national associations in Europe, another meeting took place in Brussels on 21/22 July. Following the fruitful exchange in Brussels, Glasgow (June 2008) and La Rochelle (Sep 2008), the former Missing Link group is now coming together into the (Informal) European Network of National Associations: ENNA.