The different concepts of Eurobonds - hence joint borrowing by states of the Eurozone - were associated with the hope of leaving the debt crisis behind and to meet the mighty financial markets as a unified Eurozone. An Expert Group of the Commission chaired by Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell has now reached the sobering conclusion that the discussed concepts can hardly be implemented without lengthy treaty changes.

Last week the European Parliament voted on the Package Travel and Assisted Travel Arrangements Directive. Due to the fact that the booking behaviour of consumers had significantly changed (keyword: online travel market) over the last years, it was high time to revise the 1990 EU law on package travel. The new law shall in particular take these changes into account. However, instead of using the opportunity to undertake some long overdue corrections, the proposal by the European Commission contained a fair amount of causes for conflict.

In doing so, the Commission called a halt to the plan by EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas, to follow the call of the haulier lobby to allow the cross-border transport of particularly large and heavy HGVs (so-called Megatrucks or Gigaliners). Hence, the European Parliament affirms its commitment to shift transport from road to rail and clearly demonstrates that the approach adopted by the EU Transport Commissioner is simply unacceptable.

On 19.3.2014, the European Commission presented its official response to the first successful European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), called “right2water”, which collected about 2 million signatures. From the point of view of labour representatives and the initiators of the initiative, this response is wholly inadequate.

The Committee on International Trade INTA of the European Parliament invited Lorand Bartels, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Cambridge to present his results and recommendations on human rights clauses in trade and investment agreements. It became obvious that there is still a long way to go until human rights are not only theoretically enshrined in trade agreements, but also applied in practice.

In particular from the viewpoint of employees, trade agreements harbour a wide range of risks, such as the reduction of social and labour law standards or the international Investor State Dispute Settlement process (ISDS), which is currently widely discussed by the general public, to name just a few.

The Ministers of Labour and Social Affairs met in Brussels this week. One item on their agenda was a recommendation of the Council on a quality framework for traineeships. The main objective of the recommendation is to increase the quality of traineeships in respect of learning content and working conditions in order to make the transition from education, unemployment or inactivity into working life easier. Other principles of the agreement concern for example the duration and also the active involvement of the social partners.

This week, members of the European Parliament voted with an overwhelming majority in favour of negotiations with the Council of Ministers on the new EU data protection regulations. The new regulations shall provide people with more control of their personal data. It will also be ensured that the same rules apply in all EU Member States. Now the Council of Ministers has to react to the bill of the EU Parliament.

An AK Study on mediation commissions clearly shows the requirement of improved consumer protection with regard to the planned amendment of the Insurance Mediation Directive. A lack of information and intransparency is not the exception but the rule.