Refugee crisis and job are centrals in the EU budget 2016: will it be enough?

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/plenary/en/home.html

Author: Matteo Placidini

If we should prepare a list of the most critical issues Europe is currently living, we should certainly put on the first position unemployment  and the refugee crisis.  We could say that the EU is tackling these problems on two different fronts: the first one is internal, namely the economic crisis, and hits particularly young citizens and small-medium enterprises. The second one is external, since European countries must cope with a huge number of migrants coming from outside their borders.

This context requires a quick response and Europe needs a change of gear of its policies on these topics and, consequently, more significant investments.

Indeed, the EP must have taken in strong consideration these two issues in the last plenary session. As a matter of fact, the EU budget for 2016, approved on 25 November 2015, provides relevant changes.

Concerning the refugee crisis, the European budget has more than doubled, increasing from 658 million Euros in 2015 to 1,6 billion Euros in 2016. Furthermore, an amendment invites the member states to invest 2,3 billion Euros to finance the Africa Trust Fund and the Syria Trust Fund, two important instruments to tackle the problem at its origin.

The EU turns orange for the Elimination of violence against women

Author: Hanne Van De Ven

On 25 November the European Parliament building in Strasbourg lit up orange to show support for United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. While the building shined bright on the outside, a heated debate went on within. The facts do not lie: one in third of the European women have faced physical or sexual violence, or both, and every day seven women are killed by gender-based violence in the EU. In presence of Věra Jourová, the Commissioner of Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, the European Parliamentary Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) expressed the need for change.

Article 8 of the Lisbon Treaty addresses the equality between men and women in the EU. According to the Treaty, all Member States should take all necessary steps to fight domestic violence and support the victims. However not all Member States have introduced effective laws protecting women against violence. In some countries, a formal complaint must be submitted by the victim before legal action can be taken. This is inefficient as most crimes go unreported because the victims feel afraid or ashamed. For this reason, Iratxe García Pérez of the FEMM called on the Commission, the Parliament and the Council to give the EU the power to combat gender-based violence, by introducing legislation for all Member States.