Coming up in Parliament: Vaccines, EU-UK deal, recovery 

Today (12 January) the environment and public health committee will discuss with European Commission representatives the vaccine contracts concluded by the EU as well as the progress on the authorization of vaccines.

EU-UK agreement

On Monday (11 January), the international trade committee began examining the deal on the future EU-UK relations concluded on 24 December 2020. The international trade committee and the foreign affairs committee will hold a joint debate on Thursday (14 January). Other committees (transport, fisheries, economic affairs and internal market) will also discuss the impact of the deal in their respective policies.

Even if the agreement is being provisionally applied from 1 January, Parliament needs to give its approval for it to enter into force on a permanent basis.

The economic and monetary affairs committee voted on Monday on a provisional agreement with the Council on the establishment of the Recovery and Resilience Facility. The €672.5 billion facility is the main instrument under the EU's recovery plan and is designed to help EU countries tackle the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Preventing terrorist content online

The civil liberties committee voted on Monday on whether to endorse an agreement with Council on measures to prevent the dissemination of terrorist content online.

EU culture and youth programmes

On Monday the culture and education committee voted on agreements reached with the Council on the functioning of three EU programmes for 2021-2027: the Erasmus+ exchange programme; Creative Europe, which supports culture and the audiovisual sector; and the European Solidarity Corps, which promotes volunteering in the EU.

Biodiversity

The environment comittee holds a public hearing on Thursday to look into the risk of a mass extinction of species on the planet. MEPs will also discuss how the EU biodiversity strategy for the next decade can address the problem.