60th Anniversary of the Rome Treaties and Commission’s Work Programme
With the 60th anniversary of the Rome Treaties coming up in March 2017, the European Commission’s work programme for the coming year claims to be focused on delivery.
On 25 October, the Juncker Commission released its third annual work programme, the first to be adopted following consultations of the European Parliament and Council. It sets out the EU’s policy actions for the year ahead, describing the upcoming proposals and the status of pending initiatives.
For 2017, the European Commission will introduce 21 new key initiatives, based on the 10 core priorities of the Commission’s mandate defined in 2014. Three of them are relevant for the European risk management community:
- The Digital Single Market Strategy will remain high on the agenda with a mid-term review of the implementation of the strategy;
- As a key component of the External Strategy for Effective Taxation, the Commission will work with member states to finalise an EU list of third country jurisdictions that do not respect good tax governance standards (see the Letter from Brussels in September 2016) and will implement in EU legislation the international agreement on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS);
- A Data Protection Package including a revision of the ePrivacy Directive, a framework on the exchange of personal data with third countries and an alignment of rules on the protection of personal data when processed by EU institutions with the General Data Protection Regulation applying from 2018.
In addition, the Commission will conduct 18 initiatives aimed at evaluating, reviewing and simplifying existing EU legislation, under what is known as REFIT. FERMA will pay close attention to two of them:
- Revision of the mandate, objective and tasks of the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA), which is intended to play a greater role in the implementation of cybersecurity rules;
- An alignment of national solutions and practices within the framework of the Environmental Liability Directive (ELD) instead of a revision of the directive.
FERMA will also continue to monitor five additional dossiers at EU level: the drafting of non-financial reporting implementing guidelines by the Commission, the Country-by-Country Reporting proposal currently being discussed in the European Parliament; the future of the Insurance Block Exemption Regulation (IBER) and the implementation of the Network and Information Security (NIS) Directive and the General Data Protection Regulation.
In the coming weeks, the Commission will work with the European Parliament and the Council to rea
ch an agreement on a Joint Declaration, which will identify a number of initiatives of major political importance that should receive priority treatment next year.
Typhaine Beaupérin, CEO
For the Commission press release, see https://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2996_en.htm