Stakeholder Forum preparing its final report 

Background:

The Multi-Stakeholder Forum on CSR is coming to the end of its summer 2004 mandate. Its co-ordination committee, which includes representatives of trade unions, employers' organisations, business networks and civil society, is in the process of drafting the final conclusions, which will be agreed by 29th June.

The stakeholder forum was set up following the

Commission's Communication of 2 July. The forum was given the mandate to explore whether there is a need to establish common guiding principles for CSR practices and instruments in addition to the initiatives which already exist in the EU and internationally.

The conclusions of the forum will be drawn on the basis of three rounds of stakeholder meetings which focussed on four aspects of dealing with CSR: improving knowledge about CSR; transparency of CSR practices; CSR and development, and spreading CSR among SMEs.

The Commission is expected to issue a follow-up communication later this year after taking into consideration the recommendations of the forum.

 

Other related news:

• SMEs not seeing benefits of green stimulus
• EU in sudden U-turn on China SME centre
• Female entrepreneurs still vastly outnumbered in Europe
• SMEs critical of EU-China training scheme
• Brussels piles pressure on EU countries to slash red tape

Time-saving overviews:

• EU Multi Stakeholder Forum on CSR

• Overview of main Corporate Responsibility initiatives

Official documents:

• European Commission: Corporate Social Responsibility: Commission launches European Multi-Stakeholder Forum [FR] [DE] (16 October 2002)

• European Commission / DG Employment and Social Affairs: EU Multi Stakeholder Forum on CSR

• European Commission / DG Enterprise: Multistakeholder Forum

• European Commission: Communication concerning Corporate Social Responsibility: A business contribution to Sustainable Development [FR] [DE] (2 July 2002)

• European Commission: Corporate Social Responsibility - Main issues (27 June 2002)

• DG Employment & Social Affairs: Corporate Social Responsibility

• Eur-Lex: Green paper: Promoting a European framework for Corporate Social Responsibility , COM(2001) 366 final, (18 July 2001) [ FR ] [ DE ]

• European Council: Council Resolution on follow-up to the Green Paper on CSR (3 December 2001)

EU Actors' positions:

• Aviva, Carrefour, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, Solidar, Solidaridad International, One World Action and War on Want: Statement to the European Multi-Stakeholder Forum's Round Table on Tools, Transparency and Convergence, 22nd March 2004 Annex