The Week ahead

Following US President Joe Biden's announcement that the US supports lifting vaccine patents, the European Parliament will discuss and vote on the topic next Wednesday. To speed up vaccinations worldwide, the EPP Group wants to help developing countries. But the bottleneck in vaccine distribution is not first of all knowledge, but vaccine production itself. The EPP Group calls upon the United States to start with lifting their vaccines export ban and follow the example of the European Union. Contrary to the US, the EU has actually exported around 50 percent of vaccines produced in Europe. The US has exported almost nothing.

The dramatically increasing number of migrant arrivals in Lampedusa in recent days highlights the persistent risk of a new migration crisis in the upcoming summer period. At the request of the EPP Group, the plenary of the European Parliament will debate the urgent migration situation at the EU external borders. The EPP Group calls on EU Member State leaders to speed up agreement on the Migration and Asylum Pact, the reform package of new migration laws, as soon as possible. The EPP Group wants a European approach to ensure strong borders, fair and swift asylum procedures, an efficient and safe return of those not eligible for protection, and a sustainable system to better handle upcoming crises.

On Tuesday, MEPs will debate and then vote on the European Commission reports which take stock of the progress in EU-Turkey relations in 2019 and 2020. According to the EPP Group, the accession talks with Turkey must be formally suspended if the current negative trend is not urgently and consistently reversed. As long as President Erdogan continues to provoke the EU and its Member States, violates the territorial integrity of Greece and Cyprus and veers Turkey away from European standards, from the rule of law and fundamental human rights, there is no perspective for improved relations.

During Wednesday's plenary debate, we will want to know from the Commission how it plans to examine the failure of the Czech administration to prevent the conflict of interest of the Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, concluded in its own audit report. The Czech Republic has failed to comply with EU legislation. The EPP Group will therefore request that the Commission triggers the conditionality mechanism for the protection of the Union’s budget for the country.

On Tuesday, the European Parliament will discuss the new updated industrial strategy, published by the European Commission on 5 May. The EPP Group wants European industry to become sustainable but we also want the industry to stay in Europe. We welcome the updated strategy, but it is still a work in progress. We want the European Commission to complete the work more quickly. The green and digital transitions and the strategy for Europe's industry need to feed into each other.

On Monday, the European Parliament will debate the European strategy to use more hydrogen and how to integrate the Energy System better. We need hydrogen as a replacement for fossil fuels, especially to reduce CO2 in energy-intensive industries such as steel, chemicals, cement, heavy transport and heating applications. The EPP Group wants a rapid market development. Low-carbon hydrogen will play a major transitional role. This requires support for technologies like carbon capture and storage. We will only succeed in building up a hydrogen market if we proceed step by step from low-carbon to renewable hydrogen. We must also move towards Energy System Integration.

The EPP Group welcomes that the United States is apparently on board to strike an international tax deal to ensure that big transnational digital companies pay their fair share of taxes. This will be debated in plenary on Tuesday evening. It is important, however, that the US Administration accepts that big US companies cannot opt out of whatever has been agreed internationally. The big US Tech companies in particular have effectively paid lower taxes compared to other enterprises. This mustn't continue. If no international solution can be found, the European Union should be ready to go ahead alone.

On Monday, the European Parliament will vote on the mobilisation of the European Union Solidarity Fund to provide financial assistance to Greece and France in relation to natural disasters and to Albania, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, Serbia and Spain in relation to the current pandemic. "This fund embodies the principle of solidarity in the EU. In good times, the functioning of the fund was changed in 2020 to be able to finance serious public health emergencies such as the pandemic that we are experiencing", stated José Manuel Fernandes MEP, EPP Group Spokesman in the Budgets Committee.

On Tuesday, the European Parliament will debate and vote on the annual report on Montenegro's progress on its path to EU accession. The report acknowledges that Montenegro has done a lot of work, but there are still things to be done. The country is yet to meet the benchmarks on the rule of law and fundamental freedoms, and has to show progress on the independence of the judiciary.

On Monday, Financial Services Commissioner Mairead McGuinness will debate with Parliament's Committees on Economic Affairs and on Environment, what kind of investments can qualify as 'green' investments. A clear definition of investments from steel plants to wind power generation, to building renovations, which qualify as environmentally-sustainable, that investors get clarity on where, in which real green activities, to put their money. The EPP Group wants to avoid so-called 'greenwashing' situations where the consumers are deceived into believing that a company's products are environmentally-friendly. In an environment where the market is overfloated with a series of ‘eco-friendly’ products, this can easily happen.