This week will be marked by many delegations and EU representative visits.
A delegation from the International Trade Committee will visit Australia and New Zealand to discuss the impact of a free trade agreement. The EU will begin negotiating the trade deal with Australia and New Zealand before the end of this year. MEPs are to meet members of national parliaments and EU companies along with representatives of local businesses, trade unions, the civil society, and indigenous communities.
A delegation of MEPs from the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, will visit Tokyo. They will meet with industry representatives, notably Hitachi and Sony, high-level civil servants and academia. Discussions will focus on data protection, robotics and cybersecurity.
A delegation from the Legal Affairs Committee will go to San Francisco to meet with representatives from Google, Facebook, Apple, Pixar, Universal Music and 21 Century Fox. They will discuss intellectual property law, notably enforcement questions, patents, trademarks and the ongoing EU copyright package.
Transport and Tourism Committee MEPs will visit Silicon Valley to meet with representatives of Uber, Tesla, Intel, Google X, and Waymo. They will discuss the future of mobility, innovative transport solutions, the latest developments in unmanned aerial vehicles and automated driving.
EU-Neighborhood East Parliamentary Assembly will gather in Kiev for their sixth session. MPs from the European Parliament, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine will debate cybersecurity, the fight against youth unemployment, climate change and media freedom.
Foreign affairs and defense committee delegations will travel to Washington and Norfolk in Virginia to debate EU - NATO cooperation with high ranking NATO officials and foster transatlantic dialogue on foreign and security policy with U.S. Congress, State and Defense Departments.
The first electronic signing of an EU legislative act took place on Wednesday, Oct. 25 in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. EP President Antonio Tajani and Deputy Minister for EU Affairs Matti Maasikas electronically signed the legally-binding texts of the revised regulation on Security of Gas Supply, paving the way for its entry into force.
-Last week
The Federal Government of Belgium decided to stop producing coins at the Belgian Royal Mint as part of austerity measures to save money.
The European Council reached an agreement on its position (general approach) on the posting of workers directive. Posted workers are employed in one member state and sent by their employer to work temporarily in another. The directive provides remuneration of posted workers in accordance with host member practices and limits the duration of posting to 18 months. All rules on remuneration that apply to local workers will also have to apply to posted workers. Remuneration will not only include the minimum rates of pay, but also other elements such as bonuses or allowances.
The Council has told the European Parliament that it cannot accept all of its amendments to the EU's general budget for 2018. This triggers a conciliation process in which the Council and Parliament will have until Nov. 20 to bridge their differences. In its draft budget for 2018, the Commission proposed setting the total level of commitments at €160.6 billion and payments at €145.4 billion.
The European Commission has opened an in-depth probe into a U.K. scheme that exempts certain transactions by multinational groups from the application of U.K. rules targeting tax avoidance. It will investigate if the scheme allows these multinationals to pay less U.K. tax, in breach of EU State aid rules.
The European Commission has announced a €106 million support package - €46 million in humanitarian assistance and €60 million for development - to directly assist people in Sudan affected by forced displacement, malnutrition, disease outbreaks and recurrent extreme climatic conditions.