This WEEK in the European Union

It will be a quiet week in the EU capital with MEPs working back home in their constituencies across the 27-member bloc, while the commissioners are taking their All Saints holiday.

EU environment ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday (30 October) will prepare for the bloc's participation in the UN climate change summit in Bali, Indonesia, in December, which is seen as crucial in efforts to get industrialized countries to join the EU's emissions targets.

The Bali conference, scheduled for 3 to 14 December, will see 180 countries discuss a possible successor agreement to the international Kyoto agreement, in which participating countries committed to cut their CO2 emissions by 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The 27 eco-ministers will also make a decision on Austria's ban on genetically modified maize - the so-called T25 maize, made by German chemicals firm Bayer, and MON 810 maize, produced by US biotech giant Monsanto.

EU environment ministers in 2005 and 2006 rejected earlier commission proposals to force Austria to lift its two bans, which the EU executive says are against international trade rules.

On Monday (29 October), the commission will publish its Competitiveness Report with analyses of productivity in the EU, as a key indicator for long-term competitiveness of the bloc – a key policy for the commission under the leadership of Jose Manuel Barroso.