They had already been announced last summer; this week it finally happened. The Commission is finally presenting concrete proposals as to how to gain control of the increasingly more sophisticated tax avoidance practices of major multinational corporations.

This week, the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) of the European Parliament presented a draft report on the Single Market Strategy of the Commission. The rapporteur is the MEP Lara Comi of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party and the EPP faction. The draft report repeats the one-sided market orientation of the Single Market Strategy

On the Single Market Strategy

This week, the Trade Committee adopted a report on the Trade in Services Agreement TiSA by a majority that includes important warning signals to the European Commission, the authority leading the negotiations. However, there are still far too many loopholes which may undermine the protection of public interests.

Given the fact, that the vote had already been postponed once, the Trade Committee of the European Parliament reached agreement at the beginning of the week.

A report by the European Parliament on the Annual Competitiveness Report by the European Commission, which contains significant demands, makes one take notice

There are hardly any areas where the competencies of the European Commission are as comprehensive as with regard to competition policy. The Directorate-General for Competition of the Commission is regarded as one of the most powerful weapons in the arsenal of European policy.

Last week, the draft of the own-initiative Report on Employment and Social Aspects in the Annual Growth Survey 2016 was presented in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL).

This week, the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) of the EU Parliament debated the composition of Workers representation on board level.Even though the report by the FEMM Committee has no binding or legislative effect, it nevertheless contains interesting issues worthy of discussion. For example, the rapporteur could imagine quotas to be implemented and urges, among other, trade unions to appoint workers representatives, to take affirmative action and to ensure that the proportion of women on boards reaches the threshold value of 40%.

This week, the Netherlands EU Presidency presented its priorities for the coming six months in the EU Parliament. The Netherlands will concentrate on the following three key objectives: a Union that focusses on the essentials, an innovative Union that creates growth and jobs and a Union that unites.

This week, ÖGB Europabüro, the Brussels Office of the Austrian Federation of Trade Unions together with AK EUROPA, the Brussels Office of the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour and British and Swedish trade unions hosted a panel discussion on “BREXIT”.

It took less than seven months for the EU Commission, the EU Parliament and The Council of the European Union to agree to a so-called Interinstitutional Agreement (IIV), which will revise the cooperation of the three EU institutions to guarantee better legislation in future. Following an initial review, many concerns of employees and the civil society have been taken on board.

Last week, the European Commission presented the Green Paper on retail financial services in the single market, starting a public consultation at the same time. Based on this consultation, one wants to find out among other within the coming 3 months how a Europe-wide oriented financial services market for consumers could be realised.