EU: NGOs and unions join forces to introduce environmental and social issues into the European strategy

Common purpose. The schedules of the ETUC and environmental NGOs will be tightly linked for the next few months. The international conference on climate change in December in Copenhagen, puts environmental stakes at the hear of union concerns, both because of the major employment pool this new sector represents and by the problems climate change causes for the less advantaged populations. On the contrary, the economic crisis and the renewed social agenda which will be approved by the Twenty-Seven in 2010 are the occasion for NGOs working on sustainable development to impose the environmental dimension as a an issue which won’t be avoidable in future EU social actions. This common purpose led European trade unions and environmental NGOs to form an alliance, “the Spring Alliance,” to better influence the European agenda.