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The European Confederation of the Footwear Industry (CEC) is the organisation that represents the interests of the European footwear industry. Its members are the national federations in the European Union and associated Eastern European countries.
Currently, the CEC represents over 13,500 footwear manufacturing companies in 15 EU countries and 4 associate federations.
In 2005, the CEC elected Rafael Calvo as its Chairman and, although it was originally planned that he would be in office for two years, he was re-elected in 2007 for a further two years at the request of the majority of member federations.
Over the last two years, the CEC has undergone a series of major changes in order to respond better to the needs of the European manufacturing industry and to carry out activities aimed at improving sector competitiveness at the international level, without incurring major costs for its members.
In response to this philosophy, special attention is being given to developing innovative projects that truly respond to the needs of European companies, joint international promotion activities and the active defence of the international principles of the footwear trade.
The CEC is promoting the CEC Made Shoe integrated innovation project, in which 54 European companies are taking part, alongside technology centres and machinery and IT solutions providers.
The project focuses on creating new footwear concepts based on the consumer and the environment, developing new materials, new processes and new uses.
The three concepts being worked on are bio-footwear (fully biodegradable footwear), active footwear (footwear incorporating biomechanical and technological improvements to benefit consumers) and customised footwear (personalised footwear to suit consumers' tastes or requirements, which is cost-effective due to new manufacturing methods).
Together with CEC Made Shoe, the CEC supports the creation of a global product classification system that uses the intrinsic characteristics of each type of footwear to enable compatibility between e-commerce tools for footwear and electronic transmission of both existing data and data developed in the near future. Likewise, in partnership with the CEN (European Committee for Standardisation), and with the support of companies, federations, technology centres and technology providers, the CEC is doing work on standardising the parameters used in data transfer systems employed in the sector, thereby creating a common system throughout the European Union.
The CEC has also been a keen defender of international fair trade principles. Proof of this is the official complaint lodged with the European Commission against the practice of dumping by Chinese and Vietnamese companies, which has led to additional customs duties being imposed on the majority of leather footwear imports from these countries.
In addition to this complaint, the CEC defends the compulsory imposition of the “Made in...” stamp on any footwear marketed in the European Union, as is the practice in the majority of countries around the world. More recently, a further complaint is being prepared to prevent Chinese imports being diverted through third countries such as Macao.
To do this, a decision was made to hold the most recent edition of the WFC, in April 2007, in Logroño, one of Spain's main footwear producing regions. The outcome was highly successful, as over 140 representatives from more than forty countries attended the meeting, including major producers such as Brazil, China, India and Turkey.