On 17th June, the European Commission presented a Communication on the future of European Transport Policy. The Communication does not include a detailed programme outlining political measures. Its objective is to initiate a discussion in order to collect proposals for the planned Transport White Paper scheduled for 2010. Statements should be submitted by 30th September 2009.

This week the EU Council adopted EU-wide unified regulations for highly qualified third-country workers. Since the European Commission put forward its proposal in October 2007, it had been highly controversial. The Directive will now come into effect from 2011. Each Member State will continue to have sole decision-power as to who will be admitted. Great Britain, Ireland and Norway are not required to apply the Directive; hence they are able to use their right to opt out pledged to them by the EC Agreement.

On 19th May, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation hosted a panel discussion in order to present the proposals of the UN Commission on reforming the international monetary and financial system.

The Employment Summit was well intended but doomed to failure right from the start. Originally planned as a special summit of the heads of state and government, it dwindled into a “Troika meeting” of the current Czech and future Swedish and Spanish EU Council Presidencies. A serious setback for the Czech Presidency. The result too is just proof of the shortcomings of the Czech Presidency, as it was not even capable of getting the support of the European Social partners.

Last week, the European Parliament in Strasbourg adopted an important document, which is supposed to ensure that the events prior to the outbreak of the financial crisis do not repeat themselves. This concerns banks that are among the major triggers of the financial and economic crisis and which have succeeded in avoiding the already very generous and thinned out supervisory rules by building “creative” constructions, thereby causing one of the most severe economic and social crises of the post-war era.

That was the joint tenor of the conference “Towards a new supervision architecture in Europe”, which took place in Brussels on 7th May 2009. On the podium, the Commission had gathered high ranking representatives from the financial sector, the European Parliament, the financial market supervision as well as from the ranks of consumer protectors and the trade unions.

Global negotiations on fighting climate change have been going on for years. Discussions at World Trade Organisation level aimed at reducing or completely abolishing customs duties for environmental products, have been held for a long time.

The new directive proposal of the European Commission intends to exempt self-employed drivers from the existing Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations. The consequence for HGV drivers: employed drivers would be even more pushed into pseudo self-employment than is currently the case. The working time restrictions defined in the directive would not apply to them, opening the way to an 86-hour week.

The spring forecast of the Commission, which was published on May 4th continues to see dark clouds above the European economy. Now the Commission predicts a decline in GDP in the EU by 4 % for 2009, although only three months before it had worked on the assumption of a decline of 1.8 %. The fast advance of the financial and economic crisis pushes national deficits and unemployment rates in almost all EU states.

On Wednesday this week, the European Parliament had it in its hands to write history. This, however, was prevented by the last minute negative vote of the European People’s Party (EVP). Therefore, the old 1992 Directive on maternity leave remains in force – a further low point in the direction of developing European minimum standards.