This WEEK in the European Union

Europe quietens down somewhat this week, as the European institutions wind down their activities and close for the Easter holidays, but this does not mean controversy also gets to take a vacation.

The question of sport rises up the European agenda at a time when athletes across Europe and around the world are calling for sport to be given special exceptions from the single market.

Monday will see an informal meeting of EU ministers responsible for sport take place in Brdo, Slovenia, where attendees are scheduled to adopt guidelines outlining the direction for a European Programme for Sports.

Until the Lisbon Treaty, still yet to be approved, the European Union played a very minor role in sport, as the policy area was outside the competencies conferred by the member states. However, the Lisbon Treaty gives the Union a new legal basis for sport policies, with the competence to "carry out actions to support, coordinate or supplement the actions of the member states".

In 1995 in its landmark Bosman ruling, the European Court of Justice found that the right of any EU citizen to move and work in any member state meant that, when applied to professional athletes, that national quotas for sports teams were illegal.

The move has dramatically changed professional sports in the EU, with top teams now regularly filled with non-domestic players. Some teams even contain no national players at all.

Many notable sports figures have fiercely criticised this development and called for exceptions to the single market to be made for sport. FIFA president Sepp Blatter has called for the introduction of a regulation in which a team's 11-man starting lineup should include six players from the club's nation – the so-called six-plus-five formula - in defiance of the Bosman ruling. The German Sports Federation (DSB) has also repeatedly called for the consideration of the special characteristics of sport and affording it unique protection from the single market.

On Thursday (13 March), sports commissioner Jan Figel slammed FIFA's plans, saying: "Simply, it is the visible discrimination on the base of nationality what 6-plus-5 formula proposes."

Although seemingly an arcane sporting matter, sports fans hold very strong opinions on the subject, and were Brussels ever to concede on this point, it could lead to calls for areas such as health care, education or post offices to also be excluded from the reaches of the internal market.

Chad, Kenya on ACP-EU agenda

Elsewhere in Slovenia next week is the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, meeting in Brussels on Monday and bringing together European officials with their counterparts in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. The Assembly will see a major debate on European Partnership Agreements – the controversial trade agreements offering better access to European market in return for liberalisation of African markets.

Rounding out the very short week, EU farm ministers meet on Monday in Slovenia as well. The national farming chiefs will exchange views on the "Health Check" of the Common Agricultural Policy, where the commission is proposing a ceiling on farm subsidies.

Preventing neglect, abuse of older people

On Monday, the European Commission is organising a high-level conference, "Protecting the rights and dignity of the elderly" to put this issue on the agenda and trigger an open debate at EU level on the best ways of tackling it.

One of the dominant features of demographic change over the coming decades will be the rising number of people aged 80 years and over. Their share in the total population of the EU will increase three- to four-fold, reaching around 12 percent by 2050.

Over the weekend, global warming talks amongst the G20 – the world's 19 largest economies together with the EU – will take place in Chiba, Japan.

President Jose Manuel Barroso is to make an official visit to Brazil from 17-19 March. The timing of the visit is notable as the debate on biofuels is beginning to heat up in Europe. Brazil, together with the US, produces 69 percent of the world's bioethanol, while the European Commission recently proposed in its climate and energy package unveiled mid-January that Europe use biofuels for ten percent of fuels in transport by 2020. Brazil however is worried some member states and sections of the European Parliament are getting cold feet about the target.

The European institutions are closed from Thursday through to Monday for the Easter break. The next sitting of the European Parliament will be 26 March.