This Tuesday, the European Parliament agreed to the new type approval regulations and emission values for non-road mobile machinery (NRMM). Even though the implementation of the new Regulation in 2018 will be contributing to cleaner air, the AK would have liked to see more ambition in particular for the benefit of affected employees.

Exhaust gases of NRMM (non-road mobile machinery) are an underrated danger for both health and environment in Europe.

The Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour (BAK) is committed to transparency, clear priorities and engagement in traffic noise control. In conjunction with the current evaluation of the Environmental Noise Directive (END 2002/49/EC), fundamental problems and shortcomings,on the one hand, and the national implementation of the Directive in Austria, on the other, are therefore being identified.

A conference organised by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), discussed over a period of three days which impact digitalisation will have on the future world of work. Issues at the centre of the almost 30 different panel discussions included questions such as what the future quality of work, the working conditions, the social dialogue of health and safety at the workplace should look like.

It had not been clear for a long time whether the current Free Trade Agreement between the EU and Canada would be a mixed agreement. Beginning of this week the European Commission announced its aim to adopt CETA without the approval of the national Parliaments. Some heads of government and organisations, the AK included, voiced strong criticism with CETA being more than a pure trade agreement.

Since the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) was concluded in 2014, the time had now come to ratify and to vote on it respectively.

Right from the start, the AK has been strongly criticising unilateral special rights for foreign investors and it is among other thanks to the successful AK/FoEE/ÖGB campaign no2isds that the Commission revised its original proposal on the Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) and presented a new model.

Together with three experts, Members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs discussed the reasons and effects of economic inequality in the EU and possible remedies in a public debate.

The debate and the presentations by the experts, who had been invited by the Committees (Mark Pearson, OECD; Kate Pickett, University of York; Marc De Vos, University of Ghent) focussed on income inequality, as here, compared with wealth inequality, more data is available.

Last week, the Circular Economy Package was once again debated by the European Parliament. Several rapporteurs in two committees agreed: the proposals of the Commission form a good foundation; however, they do not go far enough. Therefore, more ambition was demanded with regard to the areas of Prevention and Depositing as well as Definition and Harmonisation.

Last week, two committees put the Circular Economy Package, which had been adopted by the Commission in December 2015, on their agenda.

After the European institutions had adopted an automatic exchange of information between the tax authorities of the Member States within only a few months, now the second part of the Anti Tax Avoidance Package of the European Commission came to the vote. The European Parliament had finalised its report on this Directive over the past weeks already; however, the final decision in respect of tax issues depends on the Council of the European Union.

Will Europe be able to retain a strong industrial base or will hundreds of thousands of jobs be lost because of unfair practices and dumping measures? This question is suddenly at the centre of the debate within the EU, not least in connection with the planned market economy status for China. Why does the USA succeed in protecting their industry against unfair competition and why does the EU fail?

A quick look behind the scenes of Europe’s deregulated transport market reveals a downward trend in social and working standards throughout Europe. The European Citizens’ Initiative Fair Transport Europe is calling for greater fairness towards those moving Europe.