EUROPEAN COMMISSION WORK PROGRAMME IN 2016

The European Commission intends to take concrete measures in the Investment Plan, the Digital Single Market, the Energy Union, the European Agenda on Security, the European Agenda on Migration, the Capital Markets Union, the Action Plan for Fair and Efficient Corporate Taxation, the new Trade Strategy and its most recent proposals to deepen and strengthen the Economic and Monetary Union. The Work Programme sets out the key initiatives the European Commission will take in the next twelve months. Not everything can be done in one year but the EC is committing to present a substantive legislative agenda, and a framework for further actions that will be included in future work programmes, for which preparatory work, including evaluation, consultations and impact assessments, will start in 2016.

1. A New Boost for Jobs, Growth and Investment
2. A Connected Digital Single Market
3. A Resilient Energy Union with a Forward-Looking Climate Change Policy
4. A Deeper and Fairer Internal Market with a Strengthened Industrial Base
5. A Deeper and Fairer Economic and Monetary Union
6. A Reasonable and Balanced Free Trade Agreement with the US
7. An Area of Justice and Fundamental Rights Based on Mutual Trust
8. Towards a New Policy on Migration
9. A Stronger Global Actor
10. A Union of Democratic Change (The EC will bring forward in 2016 its proposal for an Inter-institutional Agreement on a mandatory transparency register for interest representatives seeking to influence policy making in the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission)

The European Commission points out that the European Union is at a defining moment and facing several unprecedented challenges: the refugee crisis, unemployment and the jobs and growth gap, the need to deepen the Economic and Monetary Union, climate change, instability in the Eastern and Southern neighbourhood, and a fair deal for the UK within a European Union committed to the four freedoms of the single market and the values which all 28 Member States share. In its Work Programme the Commission commits to bold, focussed and pragmatic action to overcome these challenges and emerge stronger in a spirit of European solidarity and responsibility.