"It is a bit simplistic to speak about an Islamic winter after the Arab Spring. The ongoing constitutional processes show that we are on the right path but we cannot yet take the victory of democracy for granted," said foreign affairs committee chair Elmar Brok (EPP, DE) on Tuesday at a conference on democratic transition in the EU's southern neighbourhood.

The confusion and delay that surrounded decisions on the Cyprus assistance plan were not only due to Cypriot intransigence. Rather, they reveal a need to radically rethink Eurogroup and Troika working methods, argued Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee MEPs in Wednesday's debate with Commissioner Olli Rehn and ECB Executive Board member Jorg Asmussen.

The need to agree on how to separate track from train operators and to balance growth, quality of service and working conditions were the main points raised by transport and tourism MEPs and experts at a hearing on the 4th railway package on Tuesday. Uniform rules on safety certification and interoperability will be key to creating a single EU rail area, MEPs agreed.

Draft rules to make it easier for national authorities to freeze and confiscate criminals' assets across the EU were beefed up by the Civil Liberties Committee on Tuesday. However, MEPs also sought to safeguard the right to a fair trial. They also called upon member states to use confiscated assets to fight crime and for social projects. The draft law, which must still be negotiated with national governments, is part of a broader EU strategy to fight fraud and corruption.

The EU should take the lead in ensuring the protection of journalists, said foreign affairs MEPs in a vote on Tuesday. The independent press, a watchdog for democracy, is suffering increasing harassment, with journalists being persecuted and imprisoned, they warn, stressing the need to combat impunity for threats and attacks against journalists.

Parliament's Budgets Committee gave its support on Tuesday to the two-track negotiations on the EU long-term budget (MFF) and an amending budget for 2013, which was agreed Monday evening in a meeting of the Presidents of the European Parliament, Council and Commission.

Pressure to reveal how the Cyprus financial plans were hatched would continue, the chair of Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee, said on Tuesday when she closed a debate with Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem that left various MEPs less than fully satisfied on the quality of the answers provided.

To reduce the CO2 emissions of new light commercial vehicles sold in the EU to 147g/km by 2020, from 203g today, innovation should be encouraged by giving "super-credit" weightings to each maker's cleaner vehicles. Longer-term CO2 reduction targets should also be set, and environmental performance testing methods should be made more realistic, said the Environment Committee on Tuesday. The top speed of vans should be electronically limited to 120km/h, it added.

Anyone convicted of a serious crime or corruption should be barred from tendering for public contracts or standing for election in the EU for at least five years, says the Special Committee on Organised Crime in a resolution voted on Tuesday. Mafia membership should be made a crime throughout the EU, and EU-wide rules drawn up on how to use confiscated mafia assets for social purposes, it adds.

"Soft power alone is no power at all," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told foreign affairs, security and defence MEPs and national MPs on Monday. Speaking in favour of "holding the line on defence spending" in Europe, he said Europeans must also "have the political will to use" the right capabilities. MEPs called for more cooperation between the EU and NATO in times of austerity.