The relaunch of the Trade Panel was much appreciated by all partner countries who contributed actively to the discussion of the future Work Programme of the Panel. The lively exchange on social economy demonstrated that social enterprises are also gaining in importance in partner countries although the legal framework still needs to be further developed.

All 6 partner countries were present at the meeting including business representatives who provided significant added value to the discussions. The EU countries present and the OECD also shared their best practices, which was positively noted by partner countries.

The meeting was opened by the Deputy Director-General of the Directorate-General (DG) for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (GROW) who stressed the DG’s engagement with all 6 partner countries on economic issues and noted the importance of the inclusion of business representatives amongst the participants of the Platform meeting. The meeting began with an overview of political highlights, focusing on the deliverables for the next Eastern Partnership Summit in November 2017. DG TRADE provided an overview of the state of play of the different trade regimes with partner countries and gave a statistical overview of 2015.

This was followed by a discussion on the high-level meetings which took place since the last Platform meeting in May. Colleagues from relevant DGs presented brief summaries and concrete follow-up actions of the following events:

• Ministerial Meeting on Connecting TEN-T with neighbouring countries
• 7th Eastern Partnership Informal Dialogue on ‘Economic Reforms to Unleash SME Potential: Implementing the Principles of the Small Business Act for Europe in Eastern Partner Countries’
• 1st EU - Eastern Partnership Ministerial Meeting on Environment and Climate Change
• Ministerial level meeting on the Digital Community with the partners of the Eastern Partnership

The morning session concluded with the discussion of the future Work Programme for the Trade Panel. The discussion focused on the main objectives of the exercise, subjects for workshops and experts’ discussions and attendance, and frequency and location for Trade Panel meetings. The first meeting of the Trade Panel is tentatively scheduled for May 2017.

The afternoon session focused on social economy and social enterprises. Following two introductory films (The European Commission supports social enterprises and What is social entrepreneurship?), DG GROW introduced the concept of the social economy and the objectives and activities of the Commission in this area. This was complemented by a presentation from DIESIS – a European Research and Development Service for the Social Economy – on the recently published report on ‘Social enterprises and the social economy going forward – A call for action from the Commission Expert Group on Social Entrepreneurship (GECES)’. The OECD then briefly presented their activities in the field. Following a Q&A session, partner countries had the opportunity to present their respective activities on the social economy.