BUKO-Jahresbericht 2022

The past year was as challenging as it
was productive for CEPLIS, which continued
to efficiently work in order to
bring the voice of the European Liberal
Professions to our common institutions
and to inform the colleagues on all
EU issues relevant to them. In a difficult
context marked by the war in
Ukraine, the rise of inflation, the continuation
of the COVID-19 pandemic,
the energy crisis, our professions are
constantly put to the test.
It is thus with a motivation matching
the importance of the challenges that
we have promoted their interests to
the European Institutions all along the
year 2022 during which the visibility of
our organisation and of the sector we
represent has significantly increased.
We have obviously exchanged several
times with the European authorities,
notably concerning the NACE codes,
the strengthening of Social Dialogue,
the specificities of liberal professional
SMEs, better regulation, Continuous
Professional Development, and much
more. We also had the opportunity to
present our members concerns to the
Head of Unit “Skills, Services, Professions”
of the European Commission’s
Directorate General GROW (unit in
charge of our sector), Mr. Ehrenstein.
This was the occasion to learn more
about the current and future priorities
of the European Commission that are
of interest to us. During the meeting,
specific concerns of professions on
CTFs, the application of the Directives
on mutual recognition and services,
were covered amongst others.
Following this fruitful discussion, we
had the pleasure to invite Mr. Ehrenstein’s
deputy, Mr. le Vrang, to our Permanent
Committee Meeting held in
Brussels the 6th of December. Mr le
Vrang addressed our members giving
the updates on policy developments in
all fields relevant to our socio-economic
category.
Last year, CEPLIS was also actively involved
in two European Projects,
“LIGHT” and “MUTUUS” respectively,
for which we held two seminars in April
and in July. Thanks to the collaboration
between all partners involved, both
projects were successful. LIGHT ended
in January and achieved its objective to
enhance the competencies of the legal
professions in the fight against money
laundering and financing terrorism,
whilst “MUTUUS” addressed the need
for an increase of the social protection
for the self-employed.
Furthermore, 2022 was for CEPLIS a
year of intense work towards raising
awareness on the need for more Gender
Equality within our professions.
Our declaration in the context of the
International Women’s Day in which
we insisted on expressing our support
to our female colleagues and raised
the case of equality of revenue, equality
of roles, and equality in representation,
was very positively received.
The 29th of March, our association organised
an e-conference aiming at raising
the visibility of the actions of our
Working Group on Gender Equality in
the field of our professions, gathering
multiple high-level experts to address
the issue. We had the honor to be saluted
by the European Commissioner
Helena Dalli, in charge of Gender Equality.
Ms. Eugenia Rodríguez Palop,
Member of the European Parliament
and Vice-Chair of the Committee on
Women’s Rights and Gender Equality,
and Ms. Ody Neisingh, Member of the
European Economic and Social Committee
and expert on the Gender
Equality issue were among the speakers.
In the same context, CEPLIS and Eurocadres,
the European Body representing
Managerial Staff, released a joint
position with the title “European Professionals
call for true gender equality”
calling for the delivering of true pay
Prof. Dr. Theodoros Koutroubas
Director General and Senior
Policy Advisor of CEPLIS
transparency, combating genderbased
violence, promoting the role of
women in STEM/ STEAM (Sciences,
Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics),
closing the care gap, and
promoting women in leadership. The
collaboration was a part of a greater
synergy between the two bodies, since
CEPLIS and Eurocadres renewed their
strategic partnership aiming at bringing
our voice at the table of the European
Social Dialogue. Our two
organisations are currently organising
a common event in the aftermath of
the joint position on Gender Equality
scheduled to be held on the 2nd of
March 2023.
The European Council of the Liberal
Professions is convinced that our sector
must continue to strive for better
recognition for the professions we represent,
in order to ensure the continuity
of quality service and advice to
our clients and patients, and the protection
of public health and safety. Our
professionals are the warrantors of the
rule of law, and act as intermediaries
between the citizens and the state,
but also as a reliable source of ever renewed
knowledge always ready to
serve the needs of our fellow European
citizens.
BUKO-Jahresbericht 2022
Credit: ceplis
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