Financial transaction tax. Financial experts will appear before the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee to discuss the proposal to introduce a financial transaction tax in the EU (Monday).

Situation in Hungary. Following the debate with Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán at the Strasbourg plenary session in January, the Civil Liberties Committee will hold a hearing with representatives of Hungarian civil society to assess the civil rights situation (Thursday).

Food aid for the needy. The Agriculture Committee will vote on plans to continue distributing food to the EU's most deprived citizens (Monday).

Market abuse and insider dealing. The Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee will hold its first debate on draft legislation to combat market abuse, insider dealing and market manipulation, which provides among other things for minimum rules on criminal sanctions (Monday).

2013 Budget. Work on the 2013 budget will begin in the Budgets Committee with a debate on the general guidelines for the Commission's 2013 budget, which covers EU spending in the Member States, and a vote on the EU institutions' administrative budgets (Monday).

President's diary. President Schulz will meet Željko Komšić, Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on Tuesday, as well as Egemen Bağış, Turkish Minister for EU Affairs, Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Cioloş and Zhang Zhijun, Chinese deputy Foreign Minister. He  meets Anna Diamantopoulou, Greek Minister of Education, on Thursday.

Preparing for the plenary. Parliament's political groups will prepare for the 13-16 February plenary session in Strasbourg. There will be votes on the EU patent, recent political developments in Hungary, the situation in Russia, the EU-Morocco trade agreement on farm and fisheries products, the food-for-the-needy programme and the growth and jobs strategy. MEPs will also provide their input for the EU summit to be held on 1 and 2 March.

Pre-session press briefing. The regular briefing by the EP Press Service and political group spokespeople will be held on Friday at 11.00 (Anna Politkovskaya Room, PHS 0A050).