Sunday
13th Jun 2021
There will be still a very limited number of people traveling to Strasbourg. Many think it is an early return: those travelling will have to respect the French curfew and will need to quarantine upon their return to Belgium.
It would require between 40 to 75 additional staff to oversee how MEPs spend their monthly €4,500 lump sum on office supplies, according to the European Parliament. An EUobserver Freedom of Information request reveals those calculations are flawed.
Negotiators from the European Parliament, the council of member states, and the EU Commission will push for an agreement this week on the Covid-19 travel certificate so that safe travel can pick up during the summer.
Attention will return to vaccines, after US president Joe Biden put the EU in a tight spot when he backed waiving the Covid-19 vaccine patent.
EU leaders will focus on a social summit in Porto this weekend, where they will hold a video conference with Indian PM Narendra Modi.
The European Parliament's special committee on artificial intelligence and the internal market committee will discuss the commission's AI proposals with vice-president Margrethe Vestager.
Italian prime minister Mario Draghi said he would raise the issue of the onward redistribution of migrants landing on the southern shores of Europe at the summit.
As tensions heat up at the border of Ukraine and Russia, EU foreign ministers are set to discuss the Russian military build-up and will talk with their Ukrainian colleague, Dmytro Kuleba.
On Thursday, MEPs in the Democracy, Rule of Law, and Fundamental Rights Monitoring Group meeting will hear from Polish judges, prosecutors, and government representatives on the situation of the judiciary in Poland.
Ahead of the EU summit, on Monday foreign affairs ministers are set to approve a new package of sanctions on individuals in several countries, including China and Russia, over human rights abuses.
MEPs in the environment committee will also hold a discussion on Covid-19 variants - and the vaccines' efficacy against them.
MEPs will give the green light for a more united EU health policy, a new investment plan, and debate the Covid recovery fund, which is yet to be unleashed. Lawmakers will also debate media freedom in Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia.
To help bridge the stubborn gender pay gap, the EU Commission will present pay transparency measures so that differences in wages and salaries do not remain hidden from employees.
EU foreign affairs ministers will meet in Brussels and are expected to agree to visa-bans and asset-freezes on Russian officials involved in the jailing of opposition figurehead Alexei Navalny.
Outside of Brussels, Visegrad prime ministers will come together to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the central European cooperation within the V4 group. European Council president Charles Michel will join them.
The EU's foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell will travel to Moscow on Friday, raising eyebrows because leading opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, is in prison. Borrell argues this is the reason why talking is necessary.
The director of the European Medicine Agency, Emer Cooke will be quizzed by MEPs in the parliament on vaccine authorisation on Tuesday. EMA is expected to give the green light to the third vaccine at the end of the week.
EU leaders talk vaccines, while the Portugues EU presidency introduces itself to MEPs. Joe Biden will be inaugurated as president of the United States, and the EU hopes this will mark a new beginning for EU-US relations.
The European Parliament's environment committee will hear from the person who negotiated the vaccine contracts, commission director-general of health and food safety, Sandra Gallina.
On Wednesday, MEPs will vote on the seven-year EU budget file as a whole, and also on the rule-of-law conditionality.
Any post-Brexit deal achieved needs to be ratified by the European Parliament before the end of December (and then by national parliaments), while some member states want to see the agreement translated before they can agree to it.
With only five weeks to go before the UK severs all ties with the EU, chief negotiator Michel Barnier warned that the "same significant divergences persist" between the two sides in post-Brexit talks.
Ahead of the next European summit in mid-December, MEPs will address the EU's long-term budget and rule-of-law conditionality in another virtual plenary session. Discussions will also focus on consumer rights, pharmaceutical strategy and the pandemic.
Talks between the EU and the UK have moved little, with only seven weeks left until the UK breaks ties with the EU. Negotiations are expected to resume on Monday in Brussels.
As the US elects a new president, EU foreign affairs and trade ministers will discuss developments on Monday.
After almost a week of arm-wrestling and ten days before the UK severs all of its EU ties, negotiators are back working hard on a deal on the future EU-UK relations. Budget and rule of law talks will also continue.
Tense post-Brexit talks in London, and EU budget and rule-of-law negotiations in Brussels, will continue this week, as EU countries battle the second wave of Covid-19.
Talks between the UK and the EU have progressed painfully slowly, but a deal on future relations needs to be agreed by the end of October. MEPs and diplomats will have another go at settling the next EU budget.
Deciding on Belarus sanctions and the relationship with Turkey will be front and centre on the agenda for EU leaders who will meet this week in Brussels.
Migration and foreign policy will take centre stage next week, as the EU tries to come to a common position on Turkey, China, Russia and the sanctions on Belarus.
Von der Leyen's first annual speech launches the autumn political semester in the EU, in which she is expected to address the Covid-19 pandemic, migration and key foreign political issues.
