The report denounces the “too low investment” of the members of the EESC and therefore the insufficient publications which are also focused above all on environmental issues, abandoning economic and social subjects.
The Economic, Social and Environmental Council (EESC), the third chamber of the Republic with the advisory role, is criticized in a parliamentary report published this Wednesday for the “too low investment of its members”, “of few publications”.
“Some written opinions are based on a very low number of hearings,” lambasted the macronist rapporteur (EPR) Daniel Labaronne before the National Assembly Finance Committee. “The rapporteur was surprised to note that only six hearings had been organized to write a study on occupational health, which seems to him relatively modest given the issues raised by such a subject,” according to the information report.
Daniel Labaronne noted before the Commission that for a remuneration of “2,500 euros net per month”, the EESC advisers should only work in total “four days per month”. He also criticized “a real tropism in favor of environmental issues”, to the detriment of economic and social issues, and the fact that “his work is essentially the fruit of self-saisin” and not of referrals by parliamentarians or the government.
Vary the remuneration depending on the participation in meetings
In a press release, the EESC “takes note of the improvement axes suggested in the report, some of which join projects already underway” and is suitable for “the need to strengthen its advisory role and its listening by the government and the parliament”. But the third assembly “nevertheless regrets the numerous shortcuts, in particular as to the investment of the members, to the number of experts interviewed for the development of his work and the balance of the themes of his opinions”.
The EESC has 175 advisers, including 52 employees’ representatives, as many companies, 45 under associative life and 26 under the defense of the environment. The report recommends “reducing the number of excuses authorized to justify the absence of a member to a meeting” or even “provide that members’ remuneration increases, to a ceiling, as they are present during meetings”.
While the law provides that the EESC can be seized by citizens on the basis of a petition having collected 150,000 signatures, the report asks the institution “more to enhance” its “platform for the deposit of petitions and collection of signatures”. Finally, he wishes to “make public accounts” of the CSE, whose budget for 2025 amounts to 34.4 million euros, and wants to delete 12 “EESC days” of leave from which the 154 agents of the institution benefit, paid on average 5,678 euros gross per month.
The EESC will also be the subject of a report by the Court of Auditors which should be published before the summer break at the end of July. According to a “provisional observations report” of the court not made public but revealed in March by Le Canard Enchaîné, the information provided by the EESC “on its financial situation is extremely succinct”.
