The 16th TiSA negotiation round, concerning the controversial international Trade in Services Agreement, is currently taking place far away from the public. With its now adopted TiSA resolution, the European Parliament (EP) is now sending a counter signal: there shall be increased transparency and protection of public services, no social dumping and safeguarding of regulations in the public interest.

The “car” continues to occupy both EU Commission and EU Parliament. Whilst last week the Commission presented new proposals for a major overhaul of the so-called EU type approval framework, Parliament voted on Wednesday on NOx emission limit values of Diesel cars under real-world driving conditions, which Commission and Council had agreed in October 2015. The reason for the Commission proposal are the significant deviations regarding the emissions between laboratory results and those under real-world driving conditions (Real Driving Emission – RDE Tests).

The reform proposals of the EU have been eagerly awaited for months. They shall take into account the “wishes” of the British Prime Minister David Cameron, thereby resulting in Great Britain staying in the EU. However, what is new is that the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, made all proposals public even before the official negotiations among the Member States have begun. So far, results were only presented following secret negotiations at the summits of the EU heads of state and government.

In his speech on the occasion of the ECB Annual Report 2014, Mario Draghi warns against recurring deflation. One will hold on to measures taken so far, but he sees further need for action.

In this and in the coming year, Europe's economy is supposed to be on the road to recovery. Growth rates of 2 percent (2016) and 2.1 Percent (2017) shall give the impression that the serious financial crisis of 2008 will soon be a thing of the past.

If one believes the economic forecast of the European Commission, Europe’s economy is growing and growing and growing - for the fourth year in succession. In spite of this, there were no joyful cheers at the press conference of Pierre Moscovici (Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs). Because the presented results left no doubt that the European Union has still a long way to go until it has recovered from the financial crisis 2008 and that it is still in no position to absorb fluctuations in the global economy.

They had already been announced last summer; this week it finally happened. The Commission is finally presenting concrete proposals as to how to gain control of the increasingly more sophisticated tax avoidance practices of major multinational corporations.

This week, the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) of the European Parliament presented a draft report on the Single Market Strategy of the Commission. The rapporteur is the MEP Lara Comi of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party and the EPP faction. The draft report repeats the one-sided market orientation of the Single Market Strategy

On the Single Market Strategy

This week, the Trade Committee adopted a report on the Trade in Services Agreement TiSA by a majority that includes important warning signals to the European Commission, the authority leading the negotiations. However, there are still far too many loopholes which may undermine the protection of public interests.

Given the fact, that the vote had already been postponed once, the Trade Committee of the European Parliament reached agreement at the beginning of the week.

A report by the European Parliament on the Annual Competitiveness Report by the European Commission, which contains significant demands, makes one take notice

There are hardly any areas where the competencies of the European Commission are as comprehensive as with regard to competition policy. The Directorate-General for Competition of the Commission is regarded as one of the most powerful weapons in the arsenal of European policy.

Last week, the draft of the own-initiative Report on Employment and Social Aspects in the Annual Growth Survey 2016 was presented in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL).