The experiences of the last years clearly demonstrate that urgent improvements are needed to ensure the implementation, application and enforcement of the Directive in respect of posting workers within in the framework of the provision of services. That is why the European Commission proposed an Enforcement Directive with new solutions and measures on 21 March 2012.

The European Commission has taken a positive step in the fight against tax evasion and currently existing possibilities of tax avoidance. A Communication and a Recommendation suggest a number of measures, which should help to reduce ca. 1,000 billion € in tax losses per year.

During a Road User Charging Conference, the Commission took the opportunity to pull the old, slightly dusted concept of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) to finance road transport projects out of the drawer. In view of the empty state coffers, this would be a good option to implement infrastructure projects. Unfortunately nobody asked the question whether PPPs really represent a suitable resp.

It is about a week ago that the EU Financial Framework 2014-2020 negotiations in the European Council failed. EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski has now outlined the current state of debate at a discussion event, and he did not mince his words with regard to Austria: from the point of view of the Commission a rebate on Austria’s contributions was by no means justified.

Profit orientation rather than best possible supply and service – this is probably the top priority of the European Commission in respect of its economic and social policy. A draft Directive on so-called service concessions shall obviously increase the pressure on municipalities to award contracts which, with good reason, have always been provided by the public sector, to private undertakings.

This week, the MEPs of the Trade Committee have voted on a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia and Peru. The Agreement is highly controversial: during the course of the negotiations, trade unions and non-governmental organisations drew attention to gross violations of human rights and a large number of infringements of trade union rights in Colombia.

According to the Bayliss Report it is possible to identify four “key obstacles to the creation of a Single European Transport Area”. These are “Driver Shortage“, “Enforcement Practices”, “Cabotage Practices” and “Lack of Innovations and Applications of Good Practice”.

The Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour regards the improvement of the screening procedure, the measures to reinforce the quality of the procedure by obligatory scoping, the mandatory quality control of EIA information as desirable development.

The latest study of the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission reads like a handbook of neoliberalism. Its authors argue on more than 160 pages that the reduction of social rights and labour law provisions would be the one and only proper way to promote employment and to tackle unemployment. A short glance towards Greece, Spain and Portugal is enough to debunk this mistaken logic.

Only a day prior to the start of the EU budget summit with EU Heads of State and Government, a debate on the new EU Financial Framework 2014-2020 took place in the European Parliament, whereby the EU Commission President showed unfamiliar courage, demanding a commitment to the EU Financial Framework as an investment budget and to reduce unemployment and poverty. The majority of MEPs agreed with him and urged him to fight on.