Brussels, 06/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament's March plenary session in Strasbourg will be extremely rich, with, on Wednesday, Council and Commission statements on enlargement and on transatlantic relations, and reports on the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines and on insider trading. On Tuesday, they will discuss the EU's budget guidelines 2003 and reports on the liberalisation of the energy market and the responsibility of airlines in case of accident. Monday, already, MEPs will debate globalisation, the liberalisation of postal services and the community patent, and raise the controversial question of the lifting of the immunity of MEPs elected in Italy (Dell'Uri affair). Here is the provisional agenda that could still be altered.
Monday 11 March (from 17.00 hrs. to 21.30 hrs.)
Commission statement on world governance following the Social Forum of Porto Alegre and the Economic Forum of New York;
Palacio Vallalersundi Report (Spanish, Partido Popular) on the draft regulation on the Community patent (consultation);
Inglewood Report (British, Conservative) on the draft regulation concerning implementation of international accounting standards (co-decision, first reading);
MacCormick Report on the immunity of members elected in Italy;
Ferber Recommendation (German, CSU) on the Council's common position on amending the 1997 Directive on opening up postal services to competition (co-decision, second reading);
Paciotti Report (Italian, Democratici di sinistra) on the draft decision on the statute and general conditions for assuming the role of European data protection controller;
Tuesday 12 March (with the first night session)
joint discussion on the reports on the budget guidelines 2003: reports by Farm (Swedish, Social-Democrat) on the Commission's budget, Stenmarck (Swedish, EPP-ED) for the other institutions;
joint discussion on the reports by Rapkay (German, Social-Democrat), Turmes (Luxembourg, Green/EFA) on the proposal for amending the 1996 and 1998 directives on common rules for the internal electricity and natural gas markets, and Mombaur (German, CDU) on the draft regulation concerning access to the grid for cross-border electricity trade (in both cases, co-decision, first reading);
Sanders-ten-Holte Report (Dutch, Liberal-VVD) on the common position for amending the regulation on the responsibility of airlines in case of accident (co-decision, second reading);
Jarzembowski Report (German, CDU) on the draft directive concerning the introduction of operating restrictions linked to noise in airports (co-decision, first reading);
Izquierdo Rojo Report (Spanish, Socialist) on women and fundamentalism;
Thorning-Schmidt Report (Danish, Social-Democrat) on the Council's stance on the directive on worker exposure to risks linked to noise (co-decision, second reading);
Isler Beguin Report (French, Green) on the Commission's communication on biological diversity in the fields of the protection of natural resources, agriculture, fisheries and aid to development;
Emilia Franzika Muler Report (German, CSU) on the common position concerning the directive on aligning legislation on food supplements (co-decision, second reading);
joint discussion on the reports by Paulsen (Swedish, liberal) on the common positions amending the directives on sanitary conditions applicable to animal by-products and establishing sanitary rules applicable to animal by-products not intended for human consumption (in both cases, co-decision, second reading);
Sonrosa Martinez Report (Spanish, Socialist) on implementing the directive on the treatment of residual urban water;
at 12.00 hrs., votes;
at 17.00 hrs., Commission communication on decisions taken the same day;
from 17.30 hrs. to 19.00 hrs., questions put to the Commission;
Wednesday 13 March (with the second night session)
Council and Commission statements on enlargement;
Council and Commission statements on the state of and prospects for transatlantic relations;
Trentin report (Democratici di sinistra, Italy) with view to European Commission recommendation on Broad Economic Policy Guidelines.
Joint discussion on Lipietz (Greens, France), Goebbels (Socialist, Luxembourg) and Huhne (Liberal, UK) reports on the proposals of directives concerning additional surveillance of credit institutions and insurance and investment companies belonging to a financial conglomerate, insider trading, and the prospectus to be published in the event of public offers of transferable securities (in the three cases, codecision, at first reading).
Perez Royo report (Socialist, Spain) on the draft directive on savings tax within the EU, in the form of interest payments (consultation).
Carnero Gonzalez (Socialist, Spain) on the EU's legal personality.
Carlotti report (Socialist, France) on the work of the ACP/EU Joint Assembly in 2001.
Carrilho report (Socialist, Spain) on the proposal of amendment to the regulation on decentralised cooperation (codecision, first reading).
at 12h00, voting.
from 17h30 to 19h00, questions to the Council.
Thursday 14 March
Bautista Ojeda report (Greens/EFA, Spain) on the extension of financing of plans for improvement of quality and marketing of certain nuts and locust beans (consultation).
Cunha report (EPP-ED, Portugal) on the regulation concerning premiums and guarantee thresholds for leaf tobacco for the 2002,2003 and 2004 harvests (consultation).
Langenhagen report (CDU, Germany) on the European fishing products processing industry.
Lage report (Socialist, Portugal) on the establishment of a system to offset the surcharges arising from the very outlying origin of certain fish products from the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands and the French overseas departments, Guyana and the Reunion (consultation).
Maat report (Christian Democrat, Netherlands) on the EC/Gabon fisheries protocol for the period December 2001/December 2005 (consultation).