This week, OECD Secretary General José Ángel Gurría presented the OECD Report “Economic Challenges and Policy Recommendations for the Euro Area” in Brussels. The Report seeks to justify the current crisis policy and demands further neoliberal structural reforms from the countries of the euro area, among them Austria.

The far-reaching plans of the responsible EU Tax Commissioner Algirdas Šemeta to tackle tax evasion and avoidance are running the risk of being watered down. The Expert Group of the Commission’s DG TAXUD, which is in charge, largely consists of corporate representatives and their advisors, who are well known for tax avoidance. An evaluation of the Expert Group does not seem to change anything, but there is still hope.

A seminar on questions concerning fair taxation worldwide took place in Brussels on 30 January 2014. This had been organised among others by the Belgian General Federation of Labour “ABVV-FGTB”, which is the Socialist trade union organization in Belgium, and the Walloon National Centre for Development Cooperation “CNCD 11.11.11”. An important point of the discussion was the so-called action plan of the OECD against “Base Erosion and Profit Shifting” (BEPS).

The proposal is for a Regulation that regulates emission values, the type approval and the market surveillance of internal combustion engines in non-road machinery and equipment. The key point of the proposal is the specification of a new emission level (“Stage V”), which, depending on the engine category, will come into force between 2018 and 2021 for type approval and placing on the internal market. n general, the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour (BAK) welcomes the Commission’s long overdue proposal for a Regulation.

On 29 January, the EU's internal market commissioner Michel Barnier presented the long awaited proposal for a shadow banking system. The aim is to separate the risky activities of big banks from the core business (deposits and lending). However, the proposal - not least because intensive lobbying by the banks - has been so watered down that it is hardly adequate to limit the risks of the banking system.

On 21st January 2014, the Report on Employment and Social Developments was presented in Brussels by László Andor, the Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. The report documents the dramatic impact of the austerity policy on the social situation of employees in Europe. However, the Commissioner himself did not hold back with a certain amount of criticism for this policy and demonstrated that even within the European Commission not everybody sings from the same hymn sheet.

Plastic carrier bags or - as defined in the Directive proposal - “plastic bags” are a frequently used everyday product, used for carrying shopping but also to protect and wrap products such as food for example

On 5 November, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament met to debate “Successes and failures in crisis countries”. On the agenda were the activities of the Troika, which is made up of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Commission. The neoliberal technocratic ideology of the Troika was met with critical questions by MEPs.

All too often EU policy is dominated by major economic interests. This not least the doing of the large number of lobbyists asserting these interests. However, many of these activities are carried out behind closed doors, one of the reasons being that to date only a voluntary lobby register exists. Whilst the EU is in the process of evaluating the existing register, ALTER-EU (Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation) has started a signature campaign for a mandatory register.

The freedom of movement for workers is one of the fundamental freedoms on which the single market is based. However, people going to another Member State in order to work there often have to overcome many hurdles. One frequently occurring problem are payslips, which are difficult to understand. This is now about to change as the European Parliament has decided that workers have a right to be provided with clear and understandable payslips.