Strasbourg Plenary 4-7 April
Topics on Agenda: Nuclear power plants: stress tests and safety standards. – Lampedusa crisis: how to cope with migrants from North Africa? – Spotlight on European Council conclusions. – Roma inclusion measures. – Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, call for radical rethink of relations with EU neighbours (Mário David, who drafted a report on the policy distinguishes between two dimensions of neighbourhood – Eastern neighbours (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine – European countries that may become members of the EU. See: Motion for the Resolution on Eastern Dimension) and Southern neighbours (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria, and Tunisia with whom the EU may establish a Mediterranean Economic Space seeing them as developing new democracies that will develop. See: Motion for the Resolution on Southern Dimension, also: Joint Communication on the Southern Mediterranean) Important is that in 2008, the EU launched a Union for the Mediterranean with all 16 neighbourhood partners). – Iceland, and former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia ready for EU? – Parliament’s 2012 budget to fall in real terms. – New fisheries agreements with Comoros and rules on imports from Greenland. – The Single Market: raising the game (improvement of governance including tougher infringement procedures! Kalniete Report; Busoi Report; Correia De Campos Report; “Towards A Single Market Act” COM(2010) 608 final. – Parliament set to approve aid to central European flood victims. – EU Globalisation Fund: aid to workers in Czech Republic and Poland. – Asylum: a single EU procedure to ensure better safeguards for refugees. – Parliament wants EU legal status for European political parties. – Sex crimes must lead to automatic prosecution, say MEPs. – Scrutiny of nuclear power plant closures in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia. – Impact of Moroccan tomato imports on EU producers. – Dual-use exports (Dual-use items are goods that can be used for military or civilian purposes): stricter EP scrutiny of how Commission applies rules. – Fight against fraud: MEPs critical of report on EU spending irregularities. – DHA in baby food: Parliament to rule on health claim. – Vaccination against bluetongue. – Reconciling EU trade policy with Member States’ export credits. – A fresh approach to aid for least-developed countries. – The European Investment Bank‘s work in a new economy. – Ukraine.
