EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT TO RESUME WORK ON 26 AUGUST

Work on major issues  such as European elections, internet, personal data, data protection, Prism, NSA, biofuels, food, sustainability, EU 2020 targets, breast implants, hip implants, medical devices, mortgage, home loan, debt, economic crisis, banking system, financial supervision  will return to the European Parliament agenda at the end of August and beginning of September.

The European Parliament's work resumes on 26 August. The Parliament's committees will vote on their opinions on the draft EU budget for 2014 in the week commencing 2 September, on the basis of amendments that are being translated over the summer. The week after, during the Strasbourg plenary session (9-12 September), the political groups will give their opinions on the draft annual budget, which means that the budgets committee and the Parliament's main negotiator on the budget, will have a full picture of MEPs' positions by mid-September. A plenary vote on the legislative text on the EU's long-term budget has been moved from September to October.

MEPs will also continue their discussions on the European Commission's proposal for an overhaul of the EU's data-protection regime. The legislation has renewed urgency with reports of pervasive US spying on Europeans. The Parliament's civil-liberties committee will hold a series of hearings on the Prism scandal starting on 5 September.

The college of European commissioners will meet again for a seminar in Brussels on 28 August to discuss its work for the remainder of its mandate and to prepare the ‘state of the Union' address to be given by José Manuel Barroso, the president of the Commission, in the Parliament plenary on 11 September.

Regular weekly college meetings will resume on 4 September. On that week's agenda is a communication on shadow banking and a proposal for a regulation on money-market funds, as well as a debate on enlargement. One commissioner is always be on duty throughout the summer break.

The Council of Ministers’ business will resume with an informal meeting of the General Affairs Council – national ministers for foreign or European affairs – in Vilnius on 29 August.