Last year, was a “Changeover” year with European Parliament elections and the installation of a new European Commission.
Now, all that is behind us – or, at least, it should be. Commission President Juncker has announced his legislative programme focused on “Growth and Jobs”. At the same time, he also announced that his Commission would be taking 66 legislative proposals off the agenda, in the interests of achieving better (and less) regulation.
So what will, in fact, be on the menu? Going by this week, the diet will continue to be varied. In terms of high profile events, the Greek elections and the victory of the left wing anti-austerity party, Syriza, certainly caught the attention of Europe’s politicians as well as the financial markets. The Euro took a tumble as fears rise of Greece defaulting on its debt repayments. The new Greek Prime Minister, Mr Tsipras, is visiting possible future allies in Italy and France, in the hopes of building a coalition. But has he not missed the plot? Who pays the bill? Perhaps Mrs Merkel should have featured in his agenda this week…
An annual high profile meeting in a non-EU country, the World Economic Forum, got its usual media attention as the world’s political and business communities came together in Davos, Switzerland. It also afforded Brussels the opportunity to experience some rare star quality, with Bill and Melinda Gates passing through on their way to Davos, talking about the year ahead with an emphasis on the development agenda. Bill also took the opportunity to lightly admonish the EU for its negative attitude to GMO technology.
With the European Commission due to issue a digital single market package by May - including a new proposals on copyright - all things digital on top of the agenda. Various events took place this week in Brussels on subjects such as net neutrality, e- health, and whether or not to tax the Internet. Digital privacy also featured appropriately as 28 January is European Data Protection Day.
Overall, however, one still has the feeling that the European Parliament is still a little quiet. Very few new pieces of legislation are on the table yet. Rather, MEPs are on a diet of unfinished business from last year. For lobbyists, this means opportunity knocks, since for the time being MEPs have the time to take on interesting causes. So get moving before it’s too late!