The Treaty of Lisbon and the economic and financial crisis demand new economic and social policy perspectives for Europe. The mistake must not be repeated that EU policies are predominantly oriented towards location competition and that large parts of the budget are allocated to particular interests such as agriculture. The EU citizens also want to see the realisation of a social Europe. That is why the objectives of the EU 2020 Strategy on employment and combating poverty have to be translated into action, hence they have to be considered in the next EU financial framework.

Successful economic management requires trust and confidence. The current economic and financial crisis shows what happens if the trust into the economy and its regulatory framework has been lost. In particular the European Corporate Law bears a special responsibility to create a legal and regulatory framework, which considers the interests of stakeholders warranting protection, such as creditor and consumer protection as well as worker participation.

The Europe 2020 Integrated Guidelines, presented by the Commission, will for years determine important policy areas at both European and national level. Their concrete scope and content is therefore of central importance for the success of the EU 2020 Strategy.

Based on the Treaty of Lisbon, foreign direct investments are now also coming under Common Commercial Policy. This means that the EU develops common principles for European direct investments in third countries. AK therefore calls for addressing aspects to support sustainable development of foreign direct investments in the substance of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) and to transfer corporate accountability for the compliance with universal fundamental rights (human rights as well as core labour standards) to foreign investors.

The travel arrangements to attend the informal summit of the EU Economics and Finance Ministers in Madrid were not the only challenge the ministers had to cope with. The plan was to discuss how the economic cooperation within the Eurozone could be improved against the background of the Greece debt crisis.

This week, the European Commission presented an action plan to create a single area of security and justice for 500 million European citizens in the next five years. Among others, the action plan provides for stricter data protection, for strengthening the rights of the accused in criminal proceedings and for specifying in more detail the conditions of entry and residence of third country nationals for the purpose of seasonal employment.

This week, many MEPs too were among the “volcano victims” unable to travel to Strasbourg to attend the plenary meeting. Due to the fact, that a regularly vote could not be guaranteed it was decided to postpone voting to the next plenary session in May.

This week, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg has delivered a judgment, which is, also from an Austrian point of view, very exiting. Roughly spoken, the ECJ decided that in case of a risk of a shortage of doctors in their own country, universities are able to limit access for foreign students. Austria may now be able to heave a sigh of relief and to maintain its quotas applicable to foreign students.

According to the independent analysis of the European Commission in a report published this week, financial institutes can best be made to face up to their responsibility with regard to the costs of the financial and global economic crisis by introducing a bank levy.