Publications Archive

The Commission wants to expand Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) and at the same time commit companies to greater transparency. Large and medium-sized companies should therefore be required to report on „non-financial risks“ on one hand, and on the other, report on its diversity policies for the appointment to management and supervisory bodies.

The Commission revises the legal framework for cross-border insolvencies. There should (preferably) be integrated insolvency proceedings by applying just one (national) insolvency regime in each case.

The Commission is considering a partial harmonisation of the insolvency law of the Member States. This is intended to facilitate the reorganisation rather than liquidation of businesses and provide entrepreneurs with a "second chance".

The Commission wants to grant all EU citizens the right to have a payment account with basic features (basic account), make it easier to switch banks, particularly across borders, and improve the transparency and comparability of fees.

The European Commission has proposed a "Product Safety and Market Surveillance Package" containing, in particular, a proposal for a Regulation on consumer product safety and a proposal for a Regulation on the regulatory market surveillance of products. With its proposal for a Regulation on market surveillance, the Commission wants to prevent, by way of effective and EU-wide market surveillance, the distribution of products which represent a risk to any aspect of public interest protection, such as health, safety, consumer protection and the environment.

The European Commission has proposed a "Product Safety and Market Surveillance Package" containing, in particular, a proposal for a Regulation on consumer product safety and a proposal for a Regulation on the regulatory market surveillance of products. The proposal for a Regulation on product safety aims to simplify the different rules on consumer product safety as well as ensuring that consumer products are safe.

The Commission proposes that, in future, it will decide, together with a new Resolution Board, on the resolution of banks in SSM States. In addition, a Single Resolution Fund will be set up to finance the resolution costs.

The European Commission wants to increase competition for seaport services in important EU ports by extending the freedom to provide services to include port services. It also wants to make the financial relations between public authorities and port service providers more transparent and strengthen the autonomy of port management bodies to set their own infrastructure charges in order to improve investment conditions.

EU competition law is enforced by competition authorities who find infringements of competition law and, where applicable, impose fines, and by victims who bring actions for damages before national courts. With this Directive, the Commission is seeking, on the one hand, to ensure that victims of an infringement of competition law throughout the EU are able to enforce their right to full damages. On the other hand, it wants to ensure the coordination of enforcement by way of actions for damages and enforcement by way of the competition authorities.

The Commission wants to integrate the public employment services (PES) in the Member States into a formal network and improve their efficiency by way of a benchmarking system.