The public role of corporations and private companies is poorly considered in the framework of EU citizenship. The issue is indeed mainly categorized as part of the economic growth strategy. However, in Europe as well as in the rest of the world, the private sector is more and more called for public responsibilities both in terms of compliance with social, economic and environmental standards, and in terms of support to the development of communities. In other words, private companies are called to reform their culture and operations, enriching their role in society.

Since 2001 the EU has been promoting and supporting a policy aimed at favoring the development of corporate social responsibility (CSR), defined as “the responsibility of enterprises for their impacts on society”, which implies that enterprises “should have in place a process to integrate social, environmental, ethical, human rights and consumer concerns into their business operations and core strategy in close collaboration with their stakeholders”. Some steps have been made, but the objective of making the EU single market a place where enterprises act as responsible citizens is still to be achieved.

This section of the site is devoted to gather and spread information on the development of the EU corporate citizenship policy, both with regard to companies and their public and civic stakeholders.