Agenda
EU agencies and eastern neighbours This WEEK
By Caterina Tani and Eszter Zalan
Ministers will get be immersed on Monday (20 November) in a complicated three-stage secret balloting process to decide where to relocate the European Medicine Agency (EMA) and the European Banking Authority (EBA) from London, which need to find a new home in the EU after Brexit.
"It is a serious issue and procedure, we have to order in some sandwiches before we have a result," a senior EU official quipped this week in anticipation of the closely-watched race for the first 'prizes' left in the wake of Brexit.
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Nineteen candidate cities competing. No clear favourite have emerged for either of the two agencies, in a process where objective criteria are likely to be tempered by political calculations.
Brexit will remain high on the agenda throughout next week, as prime minister Theresa May and EU Council chief Donald Tusk will meet on Friday (24 November) to talk about whether enough progress has been made to start talks on transition and the future relationship.
Tusk has said that the UK needs to make progress by early December for EU leaders to give the green light on the next phase of talks at their summit on 14-15 December.
EU affairs ministers will also hear the latest updates from EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier on Monday, while the council's Brexit working group will continue setting out how it sees the possibilities for the future relationship and transition.
Mladic verdict
On Wednesday (22 November) the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague will give its verdict on Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general accused of overseeing the murders of thousands of Muslim boys and men in and around Srebrenica, and other war crimes, including the siege of Sarajevo in the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
A guilty verdict would mean some healing for the survivors and the victims. However Mladic is still celebrated by most Serbs as a hero.
The verdict highlights the still fragile situation in Bosnia, where Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik wants to pull the Republic Srpska out of the tripartite power-sharing agreement that has kept it together since the 1995 peace accord.
Glyphosate
Glyphosate will be one of the main issues on the table next week.
On Monday (20 November) the environment committee in the European Parliament will hold a public hearing on the European citizens' initiative (ECI) banning the possibly toxic herbicide.
This ECI calls for a ban on glyphosate, a reform of the herbicide approval procedure, and EU-wide mandatory reduction targets for herbicide use.
On 9 November EU member states failed again to agree on a licence renewal period for the controversial chemical, despite an 18-month debate.
In the European Parliament next week, changes in the rules of how EU political parties are funded will be voted on in the constitutional affairs committee on Thursday (23 November).
Partnership
The education and culture council on Monday and Tuesday (20-21 November) will discuss the future of skills and the changing role of vocational education and training.
EU countries will try to reach a general approach on the issue of European Solidarity Corps, aiming to support volunteering opportunities for young people.
On Wednesday (22 November) the Parliament will host a high-level conference on Africa to look into recent developments in security, human rights, sustainable development and migration ahead of the upcoming EU-Africa Summit.
It will mark the opening of the Africa week in the Parliament.
The week will end with the Eastern Partnership Summit on Friday (24 November) in Brussels.
EU leaders and the six eastern European countries will look at the possibilities for future cooperation, and how to forge closer ties even though the EU does not plan to take in new members before 2019 at the earliest.
The leaders of five of the states - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine - will be in Brussels for the event, although it is not yet clear if Belarus' Aleksander Lukashenko will attend.