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In June 2024, the Belgian Council Presidency put forward a compromise proposal for a new Council directive on equal treatment and it won the support of a broad majority of Member States. The proposed law calls for the EU acquis on non-discrimination and equality to be extended to four new grounds beyond the area of employment (religion or belief, age, sexual orientation and disability). This briefing looks into what might be the European added value of such a directive. While most Member States already ...

For the European Union to compete globally while continuing to ensure progress in environmental, social and fundamental rights, more strategic and collective action is imperative. In a world where some leading global businesses have a market capitalisation of more than €3 trillion, an integrated economic, financial and fiscal policy framework is needed to encourage innovation and growth, including for successful SMEs. As the recent Letta and Draghi reports highlight, this requires clear political ...

Cohesion policy plays a crucial role in promoting economic, social and territorial cohesion among the EU Member States' regions. Despite efforts to reduce regional inequalities, challenges persist. This study identifies three main challenges in addressing regional inequalities. First, there is a lack of coordination and coherence between cohesion policy and other policies. Second, positive impacts of cohesion policy are not distributed evenly across regions. Third, the growing number of instruments ...

Building a European defence union is at the top of the EU's policy agenda. It is essential to preserving the security and wellbeing of EU society from current and future geopolitical threats. A reflection on the efficiency and quality of defence spending is a crucial first step in this process. Based on research carried out for the European Parliamentary Research Service, this report investigates the potential gains from deeper European cooperation on defence spending that leverages the continent's ...

Sustainable finance refers to the process of taking environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into account when making investment decisions in the financial sector. This could lead to investors channelling more investment into the transition to a climate-neutral, climate-resilient, resource-efficient and fair economy with a high level of quality governance requirements. Sustainable finance therefore has a key role to play in delivering on the policy objectives under the European Green ...

Progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals has been insufficient, not least because of shocks such as the COVID 19 pandemic and recent wars. The cost of this lack of progress is borne by 'least developed countries' – low-income countries with low indicators of socio-economic development, as defined by the UN. This study reviews the European Union's role in policies that affect poverty in these contexts. It identifies 12 challenges that could be addressed to some extent by further ...

Under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), Latvia's national recovery and resilience plan (NRRP) had an initial value of €1 826 million. In June 2022, Latvia's grant allocation was revised slightly upwards to €1 835 million. In September 2023, Latvia submitted a request to amend its NRRP, to which it added a REPowerEU chapter endowed with an additional grant allocation of €124 million. It also requested to transfer a portion of its share of the Brexit Adjustment Reserve to its plan (€11 million ...

The new EU global health strategy, adopted by the European Commission on 30 November 2022, has been positioned as a crucial element of EU external policy, geopolitical influence and strategic autonomy. However, maintaining the long term commitment necessary for achieving global health ambitions in turbulent times remains challenging. Against this backdrop, in 2023 the Policy Foresight Unit of the European Parliamentary Research Service conducted a foresight exercise involving external experts to ...

The European Union stepped up its action in the area of health – a shared competence between the EU and its Member States – in response to the COVID 19 pandemic. Yet, the EU lacks a joint health policy that recognises health as a public good. This study investigates three areas where there is high added-value potential from a joint EU health policy: research and development; the availability of prescription medicines; and preventive healthcare. EU action in these areas could generate benefits for ...

Global challenges – including climate change, geopolitical conflict, erosion of democratic principles and social inequalities – affect people's daily lives and future prospects. A collective European response over the next 10 years could help to address these challenges – and offer benefits worth up to €3 trillion a year. This represents around 18 % of EU gross domestic product (GDP), equivalent to €6 700 per citizen every year. Referring to the European Parliament's work during the 2019-2024 term ...