MEPs will meet for a plenary session from Monday 19 October to Friday 23 October. On this occasion, they will meet remotely, not in either Strasbourg or Brussels. David Sassoli, the President of the European Parliament, decided to move the plenary session online as much as possible because of the worsening health situation linked to Covid-19 in France and Belgium (see EUROPE 112582/5).
The consequences of Covid-19 and economic recovery will continue to dominate the agenda for MEPs. On Tuesday, when the Commission presents its work programme for 2021, they will have the opportunity to discuss the Commission's plans to promote recovery and build a resilient economy in the EU.
On Wednesday, the European Parliament will discuss the outcome of the meeting of Heads of State or Government on 15-16 October with the President of the European Council, including EU coordination during the pandemic.
Also on Wednesday, MEPs are expected to adopt two reports on the euro area’s 2020 economic and employment policies, which stress that economic recovery should reduce economic differences and boost the EU's long-term social and environmental goals.
Also on Wednesday, they will discuss with the Council of the EU and the Commission job losses in the EU and ways in which the social economy and social recovery can be supported.
In a resolution on which MEPs will vote on Wednesday, they are expected to call on the Commission to urgently propose measures to ensure that all school pupils in the EU have access to education in the event of more lockdowns.
CAP. In votes that will be held between Tuesday and Friday, the European Parliament will also give its verdict on the proposals on the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Parliament is expected to support a policy change that would help to adjust the CAP to the needs of Member States. The outcome of the vote remains uncertain, however, due to disagreements between the political groups on ‘eco-schemes’ and the new ‘delivery model’ (see EUROPE 12581/11).
Environment. On Thursday, the European Parliament will adopt a resolution calling for a binding legal framework to halt and reverse global deforestation caused by EU imports (see EUROPE 12573/9). Companies that place products on the European market that are derived from raw materials that endanger forests and ecosystems should be subject to sanctions, the text says.
Also on Thursday, MEPs will review the state of play with regard to the Energy Union with the Commission and, in a separate debate, will call for the Energy Charter Treaty to be aligned with the European Green Deal.
Digital. MEPs will also adopt their recommendations on regulating digital services, ahead of the Digital Services Act (DSA) which the Commission intends to present before the end of the year.
The own-initiative reports by the European Parliament Committee on the Internal Market (IMCO) and Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI), which will be put to the vote on Tuesday, call on the Commission to address the current shortcomings of the online environment. The two committees call in particular for a “binding notification and action mechanism” to tackle illegal content online (see EUROPE 12569/5).
The non-legislative resolution from the Committee on Civil Liberties, which will also be put to the vote on Tuesday, focuses on the issue of fundamental rights and calls for the withdrawal of content to be “expeditious, proportionate and non-discriminatory”, so that freedom of expression and information and privacy and data protection can be safeguarded (see EUROPE 12566/7).
MEPs will also give their views on how the EU should regulate artificial intelligence (AI), ahead of the Commission's legislative proposal, which is expected next year. They will adopt a legislative own-initiative report on the ethical aspects of AI, a legislative own-initiative report on civil liability in relation to AI and a non-legislative report calling for an impact assessment dealing with intellectual property rights in the context of AI (see EUROPE 12572/16).
Justice. On Thursday, MEPs will question the Commission on the sale of “golden passports” by Member States, following the latest revelations in the “Cyprus Papers” (see EUROPE 12544/17).
The government of Cyprus announced earlier this week that it plans to end its programme (see EUROPE 12580/32), and the Commission is considering launching infringement proceedings against it for breaches of EU law.
The subject of police violence will also be discussed by MEPs again. Following a debate in June 2020 after the murder of George Floyd in the United States (see EUROPE 12508/11), on this occasion MEPs will discuss various incidents related to the excessive or unjustified use of force by the police in Member States, including the case of Jozef Chovanec, a Slovak citizen who died after being detained at Charleroi airport in February 2018.
Foreign affairs. On Wednesday, the European Parliament will adopt a series of recommendations on the ways in which the EU should reassess its relations with Belarus. MEPs are expected to reiterate in particular the need to hold new free and fair elections and to impose sanctions on the individuals responsible for electoral fraud and human rights violations in the country, including President Alexander Lukashenko (see EUROPE 12579/1).
Sakharov Prize. Lastly, at midday on Thursday, the winner of the 2020 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought will be announced in Parliament by David Sassoli.
This year’s finalists are the democratic opposition in Belarus, represented by the Coordinating Council and political and civil society figures, Berta Cáceres and environmental activists from Guapinol in Honduras, and Monsignor Najeeb Moussa Michaeel, the Archbishop of Mosul, Iraq (see EUROPE 12579/31).
The plenary agenda can be found at: https://bit.ly/340ZtpR (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)