Changes from plenary report to adopted text

45. Notes that the Committee increased the amount of hybrid meetings in 2022 in order to adapt to hybrid work and optimise its ways of working, notably by reducing the number of missions; understands that this new way of working required a technical upgrade in terms of equipment for hybrid meeting rooms;

46. Notes that the Committee did not encounter any cyber-attacks in 2022; notes that the Committee and the CoR’s new joint directorate for innovation and information technology is composed of three units, namely digital transformation, digital solutions and digital platforms; notes that the unit for digital platforms is responsible, inter alia, for cybersecurity; asks the Committee to inform the discharge authority on how the creation of this new structure contributed to enhancing the cybersecurity preparedness of its staff, in line with the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) cybersecurity framework and in cooperation with the Cybersecurity Service for the Union’s institutions, bodies and agencies (CERT-EU); encourages the Committee to raise the cybersecurity awareness of their Members and staff, to carry out regular risk assessments of its IT infrastructure and to ensure regular audits and tests of its cyber defences;

47. Notes the use by the Committee of open source technology in its own systems, notably the main operational applications used for managing the political work of the Committee (Agora and Phoenix); notes further that the Committee tracks the use of open source technologies in its annual IT portfolio so that they are applied to new applications;

48. Notes that, in 2022, the Committee was progressing towards the adoption of a new framework for document management in order to enhance transparency and accessibility; observes with interest that the Committee started to evaluate the technical feasibility and financial implications of using the Commission’s Electronic Records Management System (Ares) in due course;

Buildings

49. Notes that the Committee and the CoR lost 5 000 m² in office space following the take-over of the rental contract of the former EEAS building at Belliard 100, which took effect in September 2021, and the building exchange between the Committee and the CoR’s Belliard 68 and Trèves 74 and the Commission’s Van Maerlant 2 (VMA), which took effect in September 2022; notes that fitting-out works in the two newly acquired buildings were necessary to enable a denser use of the office space; welcomes, in 2022, the establishment of a joint task force on new ways of working to reflect on possible optimisation of the way work is organised and how office space is used while reducing the environmental footprint;

50. Notes that the total budget committed in 2021 and 2022 to the renovation of VMA from the third to the ninth floor by the Committee and the CoR amounted to of EUR 9,54 million; notes that the renovation works undertaken by the Committee and the CoR integrated the use of smart energy saving technologies with a strong environmental component; asks the Committee to provide an update on the return on investment of these technological installations;

51. Notes that, in 2022, the building strategy of the Committee and the CoR focused on the geographical concentration of the buildings which was achieved by physically connecting all the buildings used by the Committees to their main building (JDE); welcomes the new physical connection to Parliament’s buildings which became operational in November 2022, offering a more direct, easier and 125 m shorter pathway between the buildings of the Committee and the CoR and the buildings of Parliament;

52. Welcomes the commitment of the Committee and the CoR to systematically apply the ‘design for all’ principle to their infrastructure, ensuring accessibility of their building by design; notes that the Committee and the CoR took a range of different measures to ensure accessibility of their buildings for people with various kinds of disabilities;

Environment and sustainability

53. Welcomes the sustainable practices and notably the paperless approach of the Committee and the CoR which contributed to reducing their environmental footprint in line with the digital strategy; congratulates the Committees on having exceeded the EMAS objectives for 2021-2025, except the objectives related to gas consumption; notes that a budget of EUR 60 000 was earmarked for the Committee’s carbon offsetting scheme by purchasing high quality carbon credits in 2023;

54. Notes that, in 2022, the total electricity production generated by solar panels on the buildings of the Committee and the CoR was approximately 15,5 MWh, representing 0,25 % of the total yearly consumption of the Committee and the CoR; notes that, as of 16 September 2022, only the JDE was equipped with solar panels; is aware that due to administrative procedures the Committee and the CoR will face a delay before being able to extend their solar panel installation;

55. Congratulates the Committee on establishing a business transport plan in agreement with the mobility department of the Brussels-Capital Region following which the Committee commits to carrying out a compulsory mobility survey among its staff every three years; notes that the Committee put in place a sustainable mobility plan aiming to encourage its staff to use more sustainable transport means, including through a financial contribution to the public transport subscriptions of staff or a monthly financial contribution to members of staff cycling to work; notes that the Committee is exploring additional solutions, such as the provision of electronic bikes and the installation of additional chargers for electric cars;

Interinstitutional cooperation

56. Welcomes the budgetary and administrative savings achieved through interinstitutional cooperation, in particular the close cooperation established at administrative level with the CoR with which the Committee shares premises and joint services in the areas of translation, infrastructure, logistics and IT while maintaining its full institutional autonomy; notes that, on 1 October 2022, new joint services were created, including a new directorate for innovation and information technology, a security and safety unit and a public procurement and financial management unit, as part of the new cooperation agreement signed with the CoR in 2022; notes further that 470 members of staff and EUR 55 million were pooled together by the Committee and the CoR in 2022 out of which more than EUR 30 million came from the Committee, excluding salary-related expenditure; calls on the Committee to pursue and expand that cooperation in other areas with a view to avoiding duplication and further rationalising the operating costs of services available in the premises shared by the Committee and the CoR; invites the Committee and the CoR to explore the possibility of setting up a single administration for their joint services, keeping separate directorates or units for the services dealing with matters related to their specific and independent mandates;

57. Welcomes the Committee’s search for synergies by purchasing services from other institutions through service-level agreements and by participating in interinstitutional coordination bodies and interinstitutional procurement procedures; notes that Parliament notably provides interpretation services for the Committee’s plenaries taking place on Parliament’s premises and for some meetings taking place on the Committee’s premises;

58. Welcomes the Committee’s strengthened involvement in the legislative cycle and calls on the Committee to ensure that its opinions are shared with the members of the relevant committees of Parliament in line with the cooperation agreement between Parliament and the Committee;

59. Notes that the Committee pursued and intensified its cooperation with the Commission in 2022 in the context of the service-level agreement with the Commission’s investigation and disciplinary office on administrative enquiries support and in the framework of the cooperation protocol updated in 2022, reinforcing the political, legislative and communication synergies between those two institutions, in particular in the implementation of the European Citizens’ initiative and the European Semester; notes that, according to the updated cooperation protocol, the use of the Committee’s exploratory opinions by the Commission was reinforced, thus strengthening the Committee’s involvement in the Union legislative cycle;

60. Notes that the Committee plays a pivotal role in reinforcing the links with and between the national economic and social councils of the Member States; encourages the Committee to continue fostering the cooperation on topics of common interest and on good practices and highlighting how civil society brings its contribution to the current challenges of the Union, notably through staff exchange and the organisation of common events;

Communication

61. Notes that, in 2022, the Committee’s overall budget for communication was EUR 1,5 million, the same amount as in 2021; notes that this budget was primarily allocated to support the development and maintenance of the Committee’s website, social media communication, media monitoring, media relations and promotion of major activities and events of the Committee, such as the Civil Society Prize and the activities related to the Committee in the works of the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFE’) and the Committee's support for Ukraine;

62. Welcomes the adoption by the Committee of a new data driven communication strategy in October 2022, aiming to increase the outreach of the Committee’s communication and the impact of its opinions and defining European Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and the other Union institutions as its main communication targets; notes further that, in 2022, the Committee updated the rules on partnership with the aim of enhancing its strategic engagement with CSOs through thematic events;

63. Notes that the Committee organised major hybrid events on topical issues of relevance for civil society, such as the CoFE high-level event on ‘Shaping Europe together - the future is in your hands’, the annual youth event ‘Your Europe your say’ for pupils and teachers of the Union and candidate countries, and the annual youth plenary session ‘The Truth about Lies. Youth challenging Disinformation’ for students; notes that the Committee also organised more specialised activities focusing on the Year of Youth and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, addressed to journalists and communication professionals of CSOs;

64. Welcomes that the overall reach of the Committee’s communication increased in 2022 compared to 2021, notably through media coverage and web and social media presence; notes that the number of visits to the central Facebook page increased by 96,9 % (57 000 visits) and the number of visits to the Instagram account increased by 97,9 % (20 000 visits) while the number of Facebook users increased by 1,1 % (6 million users), the outreach on Instagram increased by 33 % (over 3 million users), the posts published on LinkedIn generated almost 1,2 million impressions, and the tweets published on X (formerly Twitter) gathered over 6 million impressions; welcomes the Committee’s participation, as of 2023, in the pilot project led by the European Data Protection Supervisor aimed at bringing Union institutions on EU-Voice and EU-Video, which are two free, open-source social media networks, based on Mastodon software, allowing Union institutions to interact with the public by sharing texts, images, videos and podcasts;

65. Welcomes that the Committee ensures that citizens have open access to its documents via a dedicated electronic register; notes that the Committee contributes to the open data portal of the Commission with its own datasets, thus endorsing greater transparency in its operations through freely accessible data in human and machine-readable formats and strengthening the link with citizens.