European Parliamentary Research Service Blog

Written by Clément Franzoso.

The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is an important tool of participatory democracy in the European Union (EU), which gives Europeans a more active role in shaping EU policy. The initiative allows citizens to call on the European Commission to make new proposals for EU legislation if they gather at least one million signatures from at least seven EU Member States. Since its introduction under the Lisbon Treaty, the ECI has promoted political engagement, raised awareness of key issues and strengthened the EU’s democratic legitimacy. However, it faces significant challenges, such as difficulty gathering the required support, low public awareness, bureaucratic hurdles and a lack of binding outcomes.

To be registered, an initiative must meet a set of formal criteria assessed by the Commission. If it does, the Commission registers the initiative, and the organisers can then begin collecting signatures. It is important to note that the Commission is not obliged to act on registered ECIs, which ultimately limits the potential impact of the initiative.

While the ECI promotes cross-border collaboration and increases citizen participation, its potential is hindered by limitations such as the complex administrative process and lack of guaranteed legislative action. The Commission plays a decisive role in both the registration and follow-up stages of an ECI, but its strict interpretation of admissibility requirements has drawn criticism. Examples of successful initiatives include ‘Right2Water’, which advocates for the human right to water and sanitation, and ‘Stop Vivisection’, which calls for an end to animal testing in the EU.

While the ECI has helped raise awareness and foster political participation, its overall effectiveness remains constrained. Improvements in accessibility, awareness, follow-up actions and support are essential to unlock its full potential as a tool for active citizenship in the EU.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Assessing the potential and challenges of the European Citizens’ Initiative‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

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A paid traineeship will enhance your education and your vocational training and will provide you with an insight into the work of the European Parliament and the EU institutions. Find more info on the application criteria and process here.

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Written by Polona Car.

The Data Act aims to create value from data generated by connected products and services, by introducing data-sharing obligations. The principles enshrined in the Act have received general approval, but concerns have been expressed about the clarity of certain definitions, the sharing of commercially sensitive data and its regulatory complexity. Most provisions of the Data Act will apply from 12 September 2025.

Why it matters

Combining data with next-generation connectivity and emerging technologies can boost productivity, improve citizens’ health and wellbeing, and enhance public services. The EU’s data economy is projected to reach €630 billion this year, accounting for 4.7 % of the EU’s GDP. Forecasts suggest it will range between €743 billion and €908 billion by 2030. To unlock the full potential of data, the European Commission introduced the European strategy for data in 2020. This initiative aimed to create a single market for data, ensuring the EU’s competitiveness and data sovereignty. The strategy’s core components were the Data Governance Act (DGA) and the Data Act.

The Data Act in short

While the Data Governance Act establishes a new data governance model, enabling voluntary data sharing across the EU, the Data Act clarifies the rules for creating value from data and introduces data-sharing obligations. The Data Act grants businesses and legitimate users of connected products and services the right to access the data – both personal and non-personal – generated through their use. This concerns, for example, data from smart home appliances or industrial data. Manufacturers must ensure the exercise of these rights and create a secure, timely and interoperable data access. This means that manufacturers do not have exclusive rights over data generated by connected machines and devices, which would encourage competition and innovation and improve service options for consumers. Access to data could also enable machine-learning technologies, such as artificial intelligence, to use such data for improving supply-chain management or industrial and agriculture production processes.

The data-sharing obligation gives users the right to transfer their data. For example, they can share it with a repair provider other than the device maker, which could create more competition in the after-sale market and extend the lifespan of machines and devices. However, the data-sharing obligation protects confidentiality, and manufacturers can stop sharing or refuse to share data if it risks exposing trade secrets.

The Data Act introduces new requirements on cloud service providers to ensure customers can easily switch between different providers. It also gives the public sector access to private companies’ data in exceptional cases, such as public emergencies, or to fulfil a specific task defined by law (e.g. statistics) or for specific research purposes. In addition, the Data Act includes safeguards against unlawful international transfers of non-personal data, and promotes the development of interoperability standards for data sharing and processing, using Common European data spaces. Most provisions of the Data Act will apply from September 2025. The obligation to design connected products in a way to make data directly available to users will apply from September 2026 and removal of cloud switching fees from January 2027.

Challenging implementation

Stakeholders generally welcomed the Data Act, but some major tech companies opposed it. One of the main concerns remains the complexity of digital regulation and offering clear definitions. Even though the Data Act preserves trade secrets and includes a safeguard to prevent development of competing products from data accessed from connected products, industry did not embrace sharing of data with enthusiasm. Companies can still challenge data-sharing refusals based on protection of trade secrets, which creates uncertainty. That is why startups, scaleups and SMEs, in particular, favour an approach adapted to the size of the company, which protects innovation while increasing access for users.

A burden or an opportunity for small companies?

Adapting to the new requirements could represent  costs and administrative burdens for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), although the Data Act aims to help SMEs access data held by large companies, encouraging data-driven innovation. To support this, the EU has developed model contractual terms (MCTs) for data sharing and standard contractual clauses (SCCs) for cloud computing. These voluntary tools will help smaller companies to negotiate and protect them from unfair contracts. MCTs and SCCs were adopted by the Commission expert group and the Commission ‘shall develop and recommend’ them ‘before 12 September 2025‘. They define the roles and responsibilities of data holders and users, compensation for data access and protection of trade secrets. As such, they provide legal clarity in complex data-sharing relations. SMEs, which often lack resources to draft complex contracts, can use these templates directly.

Clarity needed: Non-personal or personal, readily available, pre-processed?

The European Data Protection Board has raised concerns about the legal clarity of the draft MCTs. Its comments relate to the interplay between the Data Act and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The Data Act complements the GDPR but does not override it, and when personal data is concerned the GDPR prevails. Therefore, clarity in defining who is the data holder and user and which data is considered personal and which non-personal, is decisive. Experts note that roles, rights and obligations remain unclear. Consequently, companies must carefully decide which law applies when users submit data requests, to ensure compliance. Moreover, according to other experts, the type of data that is within the scope of the law is also ambiguous. Definitions such as data being ‘readily available without disproportionate effort’ lack clarity, and the difference between data that is pre-processed (within the scope of the law) and processed (outside its scope) also seems vague.

Importance of enforcement

Under the Data Act, Member States need to appoint competent authorities to enforce the law, but only a few countries have done this so far. Data protection authorities retain competence for addressing breaches of personal data rules. Member States can appoint the same authority for the enforcement of two regulations simultaneously: for example, the GDPR and the Data Act regulations, the AI Act and Data Act, or a new, separate authority for the enforcement of the Data Act. Creating new authorities risks inconsistent enforcement, as different bodies interpret the rules differently, so a single authority would simplify compliance for companies. National interpretations and enforcement will ultimately shape the law’s impact. While this creates an additional uncertainty regarding its practical application, stakeholders note that it also offers an opportunity to shape the enforcement landscape.

What’s next?

As part of the digital package, the Commission has announced a new European Data Union Strategy. The strategy aims to simplify the EU’s digital regulatory framework and boost data sharing by leveraging data to enhance competitiveness. It remains to be seen to what extent the Data Act will be part of the simplification strategy. Several major companies have requested the Commission to revise the Data Act and postpone its application, as part of this strategy.

Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘Data Act: Data sharing and competitiveness‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Written by Clare Ferguson and Katarzyna Sochacka.

The highlight of the September 2025 session was the debate on the State of the Union, following Ursula von der Leyen’s first address under her current mandate as President of the European Commission. Another important debate took place to express Parliament’s solidarity with Poland following Russia’s deliberate violation of Polish airspace, added to the agenda in reaction to drone attacks the previous day.

Maia Sandu, President of the Republic of Moldova addressed Parliament in a formal sitting. On external policy, Members debated: EU action to ensure security guarantees and a just peace for Ukraine; the situation in Gaza; strengthening Moldova’s resilience against Russian hybrid threats and malign interference; the violence against protesters in Serbia; and the situation in Colombia following recent terrorist attacks.

Among other debates were: implementation of the recent EU-United States trade deal; the need for a strong European Democracy Shield to enhance democracy, protect the EU from foreign interference and hybrid threats, and protect electoral processes in the EU; serious threats to aviation and maritime transport from global navigation satellite system interference; the rule of law and management of EU funds in Slovakia; and the devastating wildfires in southern Europe and summer of heatwaves in the EU.

Cohesion policy

Members held a joint debate and later adopted three reports from Parliament’s Committee on Regional Development (REGI) calling for increased EU cohesion policy support for citizens. The first proposed strengthened cohesion policy support for regions most affected by the need to transition towards a climate-neutral economy. Acknowledging that geopolitical shifts are disrupting the economy, the committee recommends prioritising just transition funding for areas where traditional industries are disappearing, and calls for continued and increased cohesion policy funding for a just transition, beyond 2027. It also proposed simplifying access to cohesion funding, establishing special economic zones, and greater investment in education and training. The second REGI report recommended increased and more flexible cohesion policy funding for housing, beyond the current focus on social housing and energy efficiency. As housing availability has become a major issue throughout the EU, the committee also suggested cohesion policy funding for housing prioritises increased access to housing, through innovative approaches that increase affordability. Finally, the third report considered plans to simplify EU cohesion funds more generally, where the REGI committee sought assurance that modernisation to improve implementation can be carried out without sacrificing the current focus on long-term investment and place-based rationale. The report reiterated the importance of local involvement in programming, delivering and monitoring projects, and recommended simplifying cohesion funds by earmarking resources for integrated territorial development tools, direct funding for cities, and eliminating duplication of national oversight.

Future of agriculture and the post-2027 CAP

In line with the EU’s simplification priority, several files on the agenda focused on streamlining EU policy and cutting red tape. One such initiative responded to the need to simplify EU funding, as well as to widespread farmer protests, by proposing new rules for the common agricultural policy (CAP) from 2028. Members adopted a report from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) that opposes the Commission’s plans to include agricultural funding in a single fund covering structural and cohesion policy, fisheries, security and defence. The AGRI committee suggested increasing funding for agriculture in the post-2027 CAP budget instead, and to reinforce direct income support for farmers, regardless of their size, as well as increasing support for smaller and family-run farms.

Public procurement

National, regional or local public bodies spend around €2 trillion of citizens’ contributions per year in the EU through the public procurement process. Open public procurement in a competitive market should deliver good quality works or goods and services that represent value for money. However, complexity may have contributed to a decline in competitive procedures where EU rules apply to contracts above a certain threshold. Members debated a report from Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO), which calls on the Commission to simplify the procedures to make it easier for companies to bid for such contracts. The IMCO report also highlights the need to uphold social and environmental standards and support local economic development through public procurement rules.

2023 and 2024 Commission reports on Ukraine

Following a statement by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the Commission on EU action to ensure security guarantees and just peace for Ukraine, Members also debated and adopted a Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) report on the Commission’s 2023 and 2024 reports on Ukraine. The committee noted Ukraine’s consistent commitment to its European path, despite Russia’s war of aggression, and stressed the need for a peaceful solution that respects the will of the Ukrainian people. It also called for an EU contribution to robust security guarantees for Ukraine, and recommended opening negotiating clusters. Nevertheless, the AFET committee also emphasised that Ukraine needs to step up its fight against corruption, including by granting greater independence to the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.

Revising rules on food and textile waste

In the EU, we waste 60 million tonnes of food, and 12.6 million tonnes of textiles, every year. To protect the environment and ensure the sustainable use of our resources, the Commission has proposed to update the Waste Framework Directive. Members adopted a provisional agreement, reached between Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) and Council negotiators earlier this year. The agreed text introduces binding food waste reduction targets, where Parliament succeeded in ensuring the rules will facilitate donations of unsold food. The revised Waste Framework Directive also includes new, harmonised extended producer responsibility rules covering fast fashion practices for all producers – even if not based in the EU – except, on Parliament’s insistence, those involved in reuse and recycling.

Taxation of large digital platforms in light of international developments

On behalf of the Economic Affairs (ECON) Committee, Members asked questions of the Commission regarding the fair taxation of large digital platforms. As international corporate tax rules were comprehensively overhauled under the umbrella of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2021, Members asked the Commission if a unilateral EU-level digital tax could be considered in the absence of an international agreement on taxation of digital platforms. Currently, under Pillar One, countries where customers or users are located are granted the right to tax a share of those profits, irrespective of the company’s physical presence. Pillar Two establishes a 15 % minimum effective corporate tax rate for multinational companies. While Pillar Two is in force in the EU since 2024, Pillar One has yet to be enforced, as the US argues it disproportionately targets American firms.

Opening of trilogue negotiations

One decision to enter into interinstitutional negotiations from the AGRI committee, on unfair trading practices in business-to-business relationships in the food supply chain: cooperation among enforcement authorities, was approved by a vote.

Another, from the Committee on Fisheries (PECH) on the subject of a General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, was approved without vote.

Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘Plenary round-up – July 2025‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Written by Marco Centrone and Jérôme Saulnier with Maxim Baumgaertel.

Military mobility, defined as the capacity of armed forces to swiftly move troops and equipment across the European Union (EU), is a crucial but long-overlooked aspect of European defence. After decades of underinvestment and unresolved obstacles, there is a need to intensify coordinated and integrated efforts at EU, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Member State level to increase resources and address physical, legislative, and regulatory barriers that continue to cause delays and disruptions for military forces. Failure to act would leave armed forces unprepared in the face of threats, and undermine the security of citizens. Ultimately, this could jeopardise the EU’s ability to demonstrate credible deterrence and achieve defence readiness.

Upcoming initiatives at EU level represent an opportunity to finally adopt a comprehensive approach to military mobility. Clear added value could be provided by not only increasing targeted investment in dual-use infrastructure and reducing regulatory burdens, but also addressing issues in related security and defence domains that clearly impact military mobility decisions, including investment in cybersecurity, logistics hubs, stockpiling and transport innovation to enhance the security and resilience of military networks.

For current ambitious defence initiatives, allocating sufficient budgetary resources is essential. This briefing looks within and beyond the current framework and explores the potential impact of additional investment of between €75 billion and €100 billion until 2035 to improve the current state of infrastructure. Our analysis finds that the added value associated with a larger amount of funds invested collectively leads to benefits which are almost three times higher (€21 billion additional GDP per year in 2035) than when Member States invest separately and in an uncoordinated way.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Towards a comprehensive and beneficial approach to military mobility‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Written by Pieter Baert.

CONTEXT

On 16 July 2025, the European Commission proposed a revision to the Tobacco Taxation Directive, alongside modifications to the general Excise Duty Directive. The aim is to restore the effectiveness of EU-wide minimum tax rates on tobacco products and extend their scope to cover new product types. The initiative aims to support the EU’s goal of a tobacco-free generation by 2040, recognising taxation as a key tool in reducing tobacco use.

LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL

2025/580 (CNS) – Proposal for a Council Directive on the structure and rates of excise duty applied to tobacco and tobacco related products (recast) – COM(2025) 580, 16.07.2025

2025/0581(CNS) – Proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive (EU) 2020/262 as regards the general arrangements for excise duty in respect of tobacco and tobacco related products – COM(2025) 581, 16.07.2025

NEXT STEPS IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

For the latest developments in this legislative procedure, see the Legislative Train Schedule:

• 2025/0581(CNS)
• 2025/580(CNS)

Read the complete briefing on ‘Revision of the Tobacco Taxation Directive‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Writtten by Anna Caprile and Tim Peters with Ana Luisa Melo Almeida.

One of the first, and boldest, measures taken by Western countries as a response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was the immobilisation of the Russian central bank assets held under their jurisdictions, the value of which could be around €300 billion worldwide, according to recent estimations.

As the war is well into its fourth year, the debate on how to use the immobilised assets to sustain Ukraine’s reconstruction efforts – a cost estimated at US$524 billion – has evolved. A growing number of international legal experts and prominent political figures have defended the lawfulness of confiscating Russian central bank assets to sustain Ukraine, both for financing reconstruction efforts and military expenses, despite these assets being protected by state immunity. However, opinions among legal scholars differ significantly, as do the positions of the governments in whose countries these assets are held.

G7 countries reached an agreement in October 2024 on using the extraordinary revenues generated by those assets to service and repay a US$50 billion G7 loan to Ukraine, while the complex debate on the legality and related risks on the use of the principal capital continues. In the absence of a clear precedent or an uncontested legal basis, political considerations, such as US policy shifts, and calculations over the economic and financial risks incurred will play a decisive role in this debate. Notably, this subject was on the agenda, for the first time, of the informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Copenhagen on 29-30 August 2025.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Confiscation of immobilised Russian sovereign assets: State of play, arguments and scenarios‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Frozen Russian Assets

Written by Krisztina Binder with Joris Bol.

The European Universities initiative helps establish transnational alliances between higher education institutions to develop long-term structural, sustainable and systemic cooperation in education, with synergies with research and innovation. The initiative aims to promote European values and identity and support higher education institutions in enhancing their attractiveness and international competitiveness. As of January 2025, the European Universities initiative, launched in 2019, includes 65 alliances from 35 countries, including all European Union Member States. Together, the alliances comprise more than 570 higher education institutions and collectively provide education to more than 11 million students.

The deep institutional transnational cooperation within these alliances offers multiple advantages for students, staff members, the partner higher education institutions, the wider higher education system, and external stakeholders. These include, for instance, a wide variety of learning, professional development, mobility, and networking opportunities for students, academics, researchers, and staff. To drive even more ambitious cooperation within alliances, further action and closer cooperation between institutional, national, and European levels is necessary.

On 24 June 2025, the European Parliament’s Committee on Education and Culture adopted a report on the European Universities alliances. The report noted that the initiative surpassed anticipated levels of participation and underlined the alliances’ impact in driving transformation in higher education. It stressed the need for coordinated, sustainable and predictable funding for existing alliances and that the EU’s next long-term budget should reflect the strategic vision for the alliances.

Read the complete briefing on ‘European Universities alliances – a model of strengthened cooperation‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Written by Branislav Staníček.

Parliament is set to discuss the situation in Serbia during the Plenary Session held in Strasbourg this week and current anti-government protests and the Serbian authorities’ violent response in particular. President Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) has governed the country since 2012, with a heavy concentration of power, media control and a weak system of checks and balances. In December 2023, just 20 months after the previous elections, Serbia held snap parliamentary elections. The SNS won by 46.7 %, far ahead of the newly formed opposition coalition Serbia Against Violence (SPN) at 23.6 %. Nonetheless, anti-government protests erupted again in November 2024, following the collapse of the renovated Novi Sad railway station. These protests intensified during summer 2025, accompanied by violence and renewed calls for snap elections. Vučić’s second and final five-year presidential term ends in 2027, when parliamentary elections are also due.

The renovated canopy collapse at the railway station on 1 November 2024, in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, killed 16 people. Just two days before, the European Commission’s 2024 report on Serbia and its EU membership prospects warned that ‘Serbia has a tendency to circumvent its legislation in this area [of public procurement] through intergovernmental agreements and special laws’ (in Chapter 5 on ‘Public Procurement’). The reconstruction of the railway station in Novi Sad was part of a ‘capital state project’ – the construction of a high-speed railway from Belgrade to Budapest – and was based on a bilateral agreement between Serbia and China not subject to the country’s law on public procurement. Public outrage forced Serbia’s Prime Minister Miloš Vučević, Construction Minister Goran Vesić and the Mayor of Novi Sad to resign. Every day at 11:52 am – the moment the station roof collapsed – protesters halt traffic for 16 minutes of silence, to honour the 16 lives lost.

This climate of protests shifted in mid-2025. After nine months of peaceful demonstrations, tensions peaked on 28 June when a massive protest held on Belgrade’s Slavija Square – estimated at 140 000 participants – coincided with Serbia’s historic Vidovdan holiday. Police used violence against students and media representatives, resulting in four young protesters being hospitalised. On 4 July, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern about the human rights situation in Serbia and the excessive use of force to curb demonstrations; the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights similarly urged the Serbian authorities to exercise restraint. As of late August 2025, Vučić has hinted at compromise without fully yielding.

The European Parliament resolution of 8 February 2024 on the situation in Serbia following the December 2023 elections pressed for investigations into the reported irregularities. The most recent resolution, of 7 May 2025, on the 2023 and 2024 Commission reports on Serbia, supports European integration of the country while calling on Serbia to accelerate reforms on media freedom, judicial independence and fundamental rights in line with EU standards. It also notes that ‘limited progress has been made in the fight against corruption despite the adoption of a new anti-corruption strategy for 2024-2028’. On 14 May 2025, the European Parliament’s Serbia Delegation attended a meeting of the Subcommittee on Human Rights for an exchange of views on the human rights situation in Serbia in the context of the student-led protests.

Further reading

• Anti-government protests in Serbia, September 2025

Written by Clare Ferguson.

Members gather in Strasbourg from 8 to 11 September, as Parliament holds the first plenary session after the summer break. The week’s agenda includes a focus on geopolitical challenges to policy and the need for simplification, ahead of negotiations on the next EU budget.

The president of the European Commission delivers the annual State of the European Union each September. This month, Members are set to hear Ursula von der Leyen’s fifth State of the Union address, and the first of this mandate, in a key debate on Wednesday morning. In outlining the Commission’s main priorities and flagship initiatives for the year, President von der Leyen is likely to focus on the EU response to the current geopolitical challenges to the Union’s prosperity and competitiveness – areas which are already the clear focus of the seven priorities set by the von der Leyen II Commission. The Council and Commission are expected to make statements later on Wednesday on the implementation of the EU-US trade deal and the prospect of wider EU trade agreements.

On Tuesday morning, Maia Sandu, President of the Republic of Moldova, is scheduled to address Parliament in a formal sitting. This will be President Sandu’s first address since 2022, following her election in 2024, and the first since the country’s constitutional referendum on EU accession. The EU opened accession negotiations with Moldova in June 2024. Council and Commission statements are expected later in the day on strengthening Moldova’s resilience against Russian hybrid threats and malign interference.

In the meantime, the situation of Ukraine has not improved. Members are scheduled to hear a statement on Tuesday morning by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the Commission on EU action to ensure security guarantees and just peace for Ukraine. With Ukraine an EU membership candidate since 2022, Members will also debate a Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) report on the Commission’s 2023 and 2024 reports on Ukraine. The committee notes Ukraine’s consistent commitment to its European path, despite Russia’s war of aggression, and stresses the need for a peaceful solution that respects the will of the Ukrainian people. It also calls for an EU contribution to robust security guarantees for Ukraine, and recommends opening negotiating clusters. Nevertheless, the AFET committee also emphasises that Ukraine needs to step up its fight against corruption, including by granting greater independence to the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.

In line with the EU’s simplification priority, several files on the agenda focus on streamlining EU policy and cutting red tape. One such initiative responds to the need to simplify EU funding, as well as to widespread farmer protests, by proposing new rules for the common agricultural policy (CAP) from 2028. Members are scheduled to vote on Wednesday on a report from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) that opposes the Commission’s plans to include agricultural funding in a single fund covering structural and cohesion policy, fisheries, security and defence. The AGRI committee suggests increasing funding for agriculture in the post-2027 CAP budget instead, and to reinforce direct income support for farmers, regardless of their size, as well as increasing support for smaller and family-run farms.

Unfortunately, in the EU, we waste 60 million tonnes of food, and 12.6 million tonnes of textiles, every year. To protect the environment and ensure the sustainable use of our resources, the Commission has proposed to update the Waste Framework Directive. Members are due to vote on Tuesday on a provisional agreement on the proposal, reached between Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) and Council negotiators earlier this year. The agreed text would introduce binding food waste reduction targets, where Parliament’s negotiators succeeded in ensuring the rules will facilitate donations of unsold food. The revised Waste Framework Directive will also include new, harmonised extended producer responsibility rules covering fast fashion practices for all producers – even if not based in the EU – except, on Parliament’s insistence, those involved in reuse and recycling.

On Tuesday afternoon, Members are set to debate three reports from Parliament’s Committee on Regional Development (REGI) calling for increased EU cohesion policy support for citizens. The first proposes strengthened cohesion policy support for regions most affected by the need to transition towards a climate-neutral economy. Acknowledging that geopolitical shifts are disrupting the economy, the committee recommends prioritising just transition funding for areas where traditional industries are disappearing, and calls for continued and increased cohesion policy funding for a just transition, beyond 2027. It also proposes simplifying access to cohesion funding, establishing special economic zones, and greater investment in education and training. The second REGI report recommends increased and more flexible cohesion policy funding for housing, beyond the current focus on social housing and energy efficiency. As housing availability has become a major issue throughout the EU, the committee also suggests cohesion policy funding for housing prioritises increased access to housing, through innovative approaches that increase affordability. Finally, the third report considers plans to simplify EU cohesion funds more generally, where the REGI committee seeks assurance that modernisation to improve implementation can be carried out without sacrificing the current focus on long-term investment and place-based rationale. The report reiterates the importance of local involvement in programming, delivering and monitoring projects, and recommends simplifying cohesion funds by earmarking resources for integrated territorial development tools, direct funding for cities, and eliminating duplication of national oversight.

National, regional or local public bodies spend around €2 trillion of citizens’ contributions per year in the EU through the public procurement process. Open public procurement in a competitive market should deliver good quality works or goods and services that represent value for money. However, complex procedures may have contributed to a decline in competitive procedures where EU rules apply to contracts above a certain threshold. On Monday evening, Members are due to debate a report from Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO), which calls on the Commission to simplify the procedures to make it easier for companies to bid for such contracts. The IMCO report also highlights the need to uphold EU social and environmental standards and support local economic development through the public procurement procedure.

Finally, on behalf of the Economic Affairs (ECON) Committee, Members are set to ask questions of the Commission on Wednesday evening regarding the fair taxation of large digital platforms. International corporate tax rules were comprehensively overhauled under the umbrella of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2021. Under Pillar One, countries where customers or users are located are granted the right to tax a share of those profits, irrespective of the company’s physical presence. Pillar Two establishes a 15 % minimum effective corporate tax rate for multinational companies. While Pillar Two is in force in the EU since 2024, Pillar One has yet to be enforced, as the US argues it disproportionately targets American firms. Members are likely to ask the Commission if a unilateral EU-level digital tax could be considered in the absence of an international agreement on taxation of digital platforms. A Commission statement is also expected on the renewal of the mandate of the Internet Governance Forum.

• The policy priorities of the von der Leyen II Commission: State of play ahead of the 2025 State of the Union address
• 2025 State of the Union address: Purpose, historical significance and overview of addresses since 2010
• Public procurement
• Revising rules on food and textile waste
• The role of cohesion policy in supporting the just transition
• The role of cohesion policy in resolving the housing crisis
• Simplification of cohesion funds
• 2023 and 2024 Commission reports on Ukraine
• Future of agriculture and the post-2027 CAP
• Taxation of large digital platforms in light of international developments