The European Parliament discusses the enforcement of human rights, social and environmental standards in international trade agreements. In this context, the Social Democrat Richard Howitt has presented the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs with a draft statement, which requests a number of measures to enforce in particular workers’ rights in the course of concluding trade agreements.

The news over the past few weeks, that the Greek national debt was far greater than expected has put a lot of pressure on the Euro. The EU Commission reacted by imposing a rigid savings programme on Greece that the Greek Prime Minister intends to implement immediately. Particularly hit by the austerity course are the workers, who immediately took to the street to protest against pay cuts. The example of Greece now also raises the question as to the lack of economic policy coordination within the Eurozone.

This week, the Ministers of Finance and Economic Affairs of the EU27 met in Brussels. On the agenda were the budgetary situation in Greece, which is a welcome opportunity for speculators to attack Greek state securities and the Euro, as well as an initial debate with the new Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier and the introduction of a paper on the future of the internal market by former Commissioner Mario Monti.

Last week, the European Parliament (EP) voted on a new Framework Agreement on cooperation with the Commission. This will be newly negotiated for each legislative period. Barroso made far-reaching concessions and secure the still undecided votes of the MEPs for the “Team Barroso II” and his second term in office as the President of the European Commission.

The European Parliament (EP) and the Council this week agreed by way of informal trialogue, to make community funds of € 100 million available to grant disadvantaged groups in the labour market micro credits to assist them in starting their own business. Right to the end, the issue of financing put the entire project into question. Agreement was reached almost at the last second, however, not without severely curtailing the original requests of the EP.

The coming into effect of the Lisbon Treaty will once again result in changes of the legislative process. From now on, Council and European Parliament have an equal say in the matter. A glance at the statistics shows that it can take years until both EU institutions, together with the author of the draft bill of the European Commission, come to an agreement: in extreme cases, negotiations of a new legislative act can last up to 13 years.

This week, the European Commission introduced the annual Social Situation Report and the first Special Eurobarometer Social Climate Survey. The latter concerns the subjective well-being of European citizens. The survey examines long-term social trends within the EU in more detail to obtain current, reliable and comprehensive information on the social situation. It is a shame though that the report uses data from 2006/2007, hence long before the outbreak of the financial and economic crisis.

Last week, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) of the European Parliament met in Brussels to discuss the impending issues within the area of financial market regulation. The deliberations of the MEPs, however, were very much under the impression of the far-reaching new proposals of the US President on tougher banking regulations, which caused quite a stir.

From the point of view of employees, the introduction of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) represents one of the most important innovations of the Treaty of Lisbon. The ECI has the potential to narrow the frequently diagnosed gap between the EU and its citizens.

The EU 2020 strategy follows the current Lisbon strategy, which according to the Commission has contributed to overcoming the current crisis. A bold claim that does not stand up to reality. Even before the outbreak of the worst financial and economic crisis, the EU had been far away from many Lisbon targets. The recession made the target date of 2010 completely unrealistic.