College: Progress reports on security, relocation and resettlement

Met dank overgenomen van , gepubliceerd op dinsdag 16 mei 2017.

Commission calls on Member States to meet obligations under the EU's emergency relocation and resettlement schemes and addresses cyber threats.

European Agenda on Security

The European Commission presented today the seventh report on progress made towards an effective and genuine Security Union. In addition to providing an update on progress made on key files, the report is focusing on the work undertaken to improve the management of data for borders and security and sets out the Commission's new approach towards achieving the interoperability of EU information systems for security, border and migration management by 2020.

Following the recent global cyberattack, the report also outlines the Commission's accelerated efforts to update the 2013 EU Cybersecurity Strategy in order to provide an effective framework to address cyber threats.

Relocation and Resettlement

The Commission also adopted its twelfth progress report on the EU's emergency relocation and resettlement schemes, assessing actions taken since 12 April 2017. As a result of the increased efforts of Member States, the number of persons relocated so far in 2017 is almost as many as in the whole of 2016. The total number of relocations now stands at 18,418, proving that relocation works if there is the will to abide by what was agreed together in a spirit of sincere cooperation. However, whilst most Member States are active and relocate regularly, three Member States (Hungary, Poland and Austria) have still not relocated at all, disregarding their legal obligation. The Commission calls on these to follow up on their legal commitments in a spirit of mutual cooperation and trust before the next report in June 2017.

On resettlement, Members States have continued to make significant progress, with safe and legal pathways being provided to 16,163 persons so far, beyond two thirds of the agreed resettlements under the EU scheme.

Citizens' Initiative on tackling wage and economic inequality

The European Commission has today decided to partially register a European Citizens' Initiative which invites the Commission to propose "Legal acts that clearly demonstrate the EU's intention to eliminate wage inequalities between Member States and which - to achieve this objective -allow for a more efficient cohesion of these states".

The formal registration of this Initiative on 22 May 2017 will start a one-year process of collection of signatures of support by its organisers. Should the Initiative receive one million statements of support from at least seven different Member States, the Commission will have to react within three months. The Commission can decide either to follow the request or not, and in both instances would be required to explain its reasoning.

European Semester

The College of Commissioners held an orientation debate on the European Semester Spring Package in the light of the Spring Forecast presented last week.

Other issues

Commissioner Andriukaitis informed the College today on the issue of glyphosate. On the basis of an information note the College agreed to the approach of restarting the discussions with Member States about the possible renewal of approval of glyphosate for 10 years.

Commissioner Andriukaitis also informed the College about the state of play on the endocrine disruptors file. On the basis of an information note, the College agreed with the approach presented regarding the next steps.

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