This week, the British EU Commissioner Jonathan Hill presented a core project of the Juncker Commission: the Capital Markets Union. First and foremost this shall assist SMEs with regard to financing as it is still difficult in many European countries to get a loan. This week, the European Commission has initiated three consultations with regard to the Capital Markets Union.

This week, the Council of the Commission debated measures on the more effective taxation of cross-border operating businesses. The debate was also linked to the review of favourable tax rules for multinational companies in four Member States with regard to illegal state aid.

This week, the interesting question as to whether employees should be financially involved in companies, was discussed in the plenum of the European Parliament. Taking part in the discussion was the competent Commissioner Věra Jourová, who made no secret of the fact that she saw only positive aspects regarding Employee Share Ownership (ESO). However, the EU Commission will only present a relevant draft proposal in 2016 though this will only take the form of a recommendation as ESO will continue to be a voluntary instrument that should not be regulated by the EU Commission.

This week, the European Parliament adopted a motion for a resolution on country of origin labelling for meat in processed food, in which the Commission has been urged to let deeds follow the Report of 2013 and to present a legislative proposal at last. The AK too has been demanding clear product labelling for a long time.

Currently, the country of provenance, of rearing as well as of slaughter has to be named only in case of fresh unprocessed beef, which is a consequence of the BSE scandal 15 years ago.

This week, the 8th round of negotiations in respect of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership took place in Brussels. The controversial Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is still suspended; instead this time “Regulatory Cooperation” was among other a topic for discussion. A leaked document shows that these plans provide reasonable grounds for concern.

Better late than never would be a good way to describe the proposal presented this week by the EU Commission, according to which this year already 1 billion euro shall be made available within the scope of the Youth Employment Initiative. This will increase up to 30 times the pre-financing Member States receive to boost youth employment!

The issue of “Better Regulation” is at the focus of the new Commission. It is the aim of the initiative to reduce bureaucratic barriers and unnecessary regulations. The agenda concerns almost all European policy areas and is part of the remit of the First Vice President Frans Timmermans. In a well-attended discussion event in Brussels, AK and ÖGB explored the question whether this initiative is indeed only about identifying unnecessary regulations or whether the rights of employees and consumers will be restricted under the guise of reducing bureaucracy.

This week, the EU Commission made a first step towards creating a European Capital Markets Union. Vice President Katainen called the Capital Markets Union an important element of the EU strategy for more investments. The aim is to create a genuine single market for capital in Europe, which above all shall also secure funding of small and medium-sized enterprises.

The Trade Committee this week discussed an initial working document on the resolution on “Parliament's recommendations to the Commission on the negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership”. The Trade Committee is scheduled to vote on the resolution at the beginning of May.

At its 45th Annual Meeting in Switzerland, the World Economic Forum (WEF) discusses responsibilities within the “new global context”. For three days, over 2500 politicians and managers are holding meetings to deal with topics such as climate change, Euro issues, wealth inequality and terror. A recently published report by Oxfam, which says among other that the wealthiest percent of the world population owns more than 50 percent of the world’s wealth, additionally fuels the inequality debate.