This WEEK in the European Union

The outgoing Czech and incoming Swedish presidencies of the European Union are to hold consultations with all political groups in the European Parliament throughout the coming week, anxious that the group leaders will place a vote on the candidacy of European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso for a second term in office on the agenda of the first sitting of the parliament later on in the month.

They also want to gauge whether the centre-right politician, deeply unpopular amongst Socialists and Greens, will be able to command the support of a majority of deputies. The left and centre of the house have no real candidate of their own, so their grumblings about refusing to back a second mandate for Mr Barroso is widely viewed instead as a tactic to extract 'social' and human rights policy concessions from the more free-market-oriented leader.

On Tuesday, the heads of the European People's Party, the centre-right grouping in the parliament, and the Party of European Socialists, their centre-left counterpart, will both vote in their respective leaders, which, once decided, will naturally give more structure to the discussions around the choice of the next president of the commission.

At the beginning of the week (Monday, 22 June), agriculture and fisheries ministers are to meet in Luxembourg Council and draw up conclusions on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2013. Their other focus will be a proposal from the commission on updating rules on the slaughter of animals. The ministers are expected to reach an agreement on the subject.

The week is then bookended with a meeting of environment ministers on Thursday (25 June), where they are expected to reach agreement on proposals from the commission on a directive targeting pollution from industry. The draft bill integrates seven directives into a new one and sets more stringent emission limits for some installations, including large power plants.

The ministers will also discuss what progress has been made so far in global negotiations in the lead up to the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in December where the world will try to reach a pact on reducing carbon emissions to replace the Kyoto Protocol. The lynchpin of any deal - substantial funds from developed countries to pay for climate mitigation and adaptation measures in the developing world - will really be discussed and certainly no announcement of any offers of sums of money for such purposes will be delivered. The ministers instead will be considering a vision of what legal outcome they would like to see from the December meeting. They will also debrief over the results of last week's round of climate negotiations in Bonn.

Over the weekend, potential EU accession candidate Albania heads to the polls for a general election. The EU will be keeping a watchful eye on how the elections are carried out, with the country having submitted its application for EU membership at the end of April.

Meanwhile on Monday, though the French presidency of the European Union ended six months ago and Sweden is preparing itself to take on the reins of the Union, the ever-active president of the French republic, Nicolas Sarkozy is to outline his vision of the future of Europe at the Congress of Versailles.

The European Commission is expected to suggest amendments to its proposed directive on increased capital requirements for financial institutions. The commission was also due to issue the amendments last week, however, so this is not a certainty.

Finally, EUobserver is to launch a new section investigating the regions and cities of Europe. Since its birth, EUobserver has generally focussed on the European institutions and Europe's member states.

With the new section, we hope to chart a new course that will begin to explore those parts of Europe that citizens often care most about - their neighbourhood, their town and the region in which they live.