European Parliament Agenda: The Week Ahead 02 – 08 March 2015

Political group and committee meetings, Brussels

European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI). Plans for setting up the EFSI, a European Investment Advisory Hub (EIAH) and a European Investment Project Pipeline, the three pillars of the so called “Juncker plan”, will be debated with experts by the Economic and Monetary Affairs and Budgets committees. (Monday)

UNRWA. Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Pierre Krähenbühl will debate the situation in the region, and UNWRA’s funding shortage, with the Foreign Affairs Committee, on Monday. Mr Krähenbühl will also meet EP President Martin Schulz on Tuesday.

International Women’s Day (IWD). The Women’s Rights Committee will hold a meeting with members of EU and enlargement countries’ national parliaments on “Empowering Women and Girls through Education”. EP Vice-President Dimitrios Papadimoulis will open the debate. Women’s Rights Committee chair Iratxe García-Pérez and Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová will hold a press conference at 12:30. (Thursday)

Plenary preparations. Political groups will prepare for the 9 – 12 March plenary session in Strasbourg, where MEPs are to vote on the European Long Term Investment Funds designed to boost infrastructure investments, a cap on card payment fees, money market funds, equality of men and women, the 2016 EU budget and the annual report on the EU foreign policy. MEPs will also debate preparations for the March European Council.

President’s diary. EP President Martin Schulz will meet Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella and the Supreme Head of the Universal Syriac Orthodox Church, His Holiness Patriarch Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Mr Schulz will meet Slovakia’sPresident Andrej Kiska, followed by a press point (Paul-Henri Spaak Building, Protocol entrance), Speaker of the Seimas of Lithuania Loreta Graužinienė and General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) Bernadette Ségol. Finally, the President will travel to Madrid, Spain, for a series of meetings including the King of Spain His Majesty Felipe VI, on Friday.

Seminar for journalists. To mark this year’s International Women’s Day (8 March), the EP Press Service will hold a seminar on Empowering women and girls through education, where journalists can meet MEPs and invited experts to discuss women’s right to education and possible EU measures to protect it (Wednesday)

Pre-session press briefing. The EP Press Service will hold a press briefing with the EP political groups’ spokespersons at 11.00 on Friday. (“Anna Politkovskaya” EP Press conference room, Brussels)

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