- EU-Japan Free Trade Agreement
The EU and Japan are expected to sign a political agreement on a free trade deal on Thursday in Brussels. The 18th round of negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement between the EU and Japan took place in Tokyo in April 2017, but negotiations were officially launched on March 23, 2013. Now both sides seek to conclude negotiations in 2017. Japan remains a major trade partner for the EU while Europe is a very important market for Japan. Japan is also a major investor in the EU. Machinery, electrical machinery, motor vehicles, optical and medical instruments, and chemicals dominate imports from Japan to the EU. EU exports to Japan are mainly in motor vehicles, machinery, pharmaceuticals, optical and medical instruments and electrical machinery.
- G-20 summit
Hamburg will host the twelfth G20 Summit on July 7 and 8. More than 20 Heads of State, as well as representatives of international organizations, will meet at the summit.
-EU-Turkey
European Parliament (EP) will discuss Turkey’s 2016 reform efforts with Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn on Wednesday and vote on a resolution on Thursday.
They are likely to ask for EU accession talks to be suspended if proposed changes to the Turkish constitution moves forward.
The EP will debate and vote on a draft legislation on Tuesday that is designed to crack down on corporate tax avoidance worth €50-70 billion a year in lost tax revenues. According to the legislation, large multinationals should provide publicly available information on how much tax they pay and where they pay taxes.
Members of the EP (MEPs) will debate the outcome of the June 22-23 European Council meeting and address issues on the agenda of the July 7-8 G20 summit with European Council President Donald Tusk and the Commission on Wednesday.
MEPs are expected to give their consent to the first ever EU-Cuba cooperation agreement at noon on Wednesday after a debate with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini on Tuesday.
- Last week
The European Commission has fined Google €2.42 billion for breaching EU antitrust rules. Google has abused its market dominance as a search engine by giving an illegal advantage to another Google product, its comparison shopping service. The company must now end the conduct within 90 days or face penalty payments of up to 5 percent of the average daily worldwide turnover of Alphabet, Google's parent company.
The European Commission has found that Polish tax on the retail sector is in breach of EU state aid rules. The Commission concluded that the progressive tax rates based on turnover give companies with low turnover an advantage over their competitors.
The EU extended measures to help fruit producers affected by the ban on imports imposed by the Russian authorities for a year.
The Commission launched a new pan-European personal pensions label to help consumers save for retirement. The proposal will provide pension providers the tools to offer a simple and innovative pan-European personal pension product (PEPP). This new type of voluntary personal pension is designed to give savers more choice when they are putting money aside for old age and provide them with more competitive products.
PEPPs will have the same standard features wherever they are sold in the EU and can be offered by a broad range of providers, such as insurance companies, banks, occupational pension funds, investment firms and asset managers. They will complement existing state-based, occupational and national personal pensions, but not replace or harmonize national personal pension regimes.
The European Commission reported on progress achieved on the disbursement of allocated support last week at the seventh Steering Committee meeting of the EU Facility for refugees. Of the overall €3 billion budget for 2016-2017, €2.9 billion has been allocated to date. Contracts have been signed for 48 projects worth over €1.6 billion, out of which €811 million has already been disbursed.