The Spring Alliance: for a European Union that puts people and planet first

The Spring Alliance was set up to facilitate discussions between civil society organisations at the EU and national levels about the desired political priorities for the EU for the coming decade. Its basis was the three European umbrellas of environmental, social organisations and trade-unions:  the European Environmental Bureau, Social Platform and the European Confederation of Trade Unions. These organisations had been working together since 2000 on promoting a Sustainable Development Strategy for the EU and for the re-orientation of the Lisbon Strategy to achieve our common goals. Concord, the European Confederation for Relief and Development, joined the Spring Alliance Steering Committee in early 2009 to ensure that the work of the Spring Alliance would always take the international dimension, and particularly global solidarity, into account.

The Spring Alliance does not have a formal membership beyond these four organisations, but it works with a wide range of organisations that have expressed interest in its objectives and activities.
 
The most concrete list of Spring Alliance supporters consists of those that have signed the Spring Alliance Manifesto.

In 2009 the Spring Alliance concentrated on developing the Spring Alliance Manifesto, and, from July of that year, to promote its ideas with representatives of the EU Institutions.

In 2010 it published joint responses to the Europe 2020 Strategy, presented these to EU policymakers (including President Van Rompuy] and outlined the reasons implementation at the national level. It organized three brainstorming events in Brussels with supporters at different stages of the formulation and implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy.

A new, but strongly related, activity the Spring Alliance started in September 2010 is to follow and respond to the emerging debate on the Financial Perspectives 2014-2020. The EU Budget can play an important role in making the EU a vehicle for sustainable development which focuses on people and planet, working on the short term to ensure a longer term future in prosperity and global solidarity, while respecting the ecological limitations of the planet.

In 2009, the Spring Alliance received special financial support from the Environment Ministries of Austria and the Netherlands. Although in 2010 it does not have access to such resources, it has already organised two brainstorming sessions for supporters, and continues to work with its networks to collect and distribute information and views and discuss its positions with EU decision makers.