White paper on the future of Europe

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker presented a White Paper on the future of Europe on 1 March at the European Parliament. The paper sets out the main challenges and opportunities for Europe in the coming decade. It presents five scenarios for how the Union could evolve by 2025. The White Paper is the European's Commission contribution to the Rome Summit, when the EU will discuss its achievements over the past 60 years but also its future with 27 members. The European Commission, together with the European Parliament and interested member states, will host a series of 'Future of Europe Debates' across Europe's cities and regions. The European Commission will contribute to the debate in the months to come with a series of reflection papers on the future of EU finances, Europe's defence, the Economic and Monetary Union, the European social dimension and globalisation.

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Definitive anti-dumping duties on imports of heavy steel plates from China

On 28 February, the Commission decided to impose definitive anti-dumping duties on imports of heavy steel plates from China. The Commission's investigation found Chinese companies to be heavily dumping their products on the EU market, causing material injury to EU producers. Chinese exports of heavy steel plates will therefore be taxed with anti-dumping duties ranging from 65% to 73%. These measures will help protect EU steel producers from the damaging effects of Chinese dumping. The EU currently has an unprecedented number of trade defence measures in place targeting unfair imports of steel products, with a total of 41 anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures, 18 of which are on products coming from China.

Migration

On 2 March, the Commission reported on progress made under the Migration Partnership Framework and presented the first steps taken to implement actions along the Central Mediterranean route.

The Commission also made a renewed call on member states to pick up the pace of the relocation within the EU of refugees from Italy and Greece, with few having met their commitments in full. February set a new monthly record with around 1,940 relocations, but the current pace of relocation is still well below expectations. Overall, 13,546 relocations have been carried out so far. Conversely, progress on resettlement of refugees into EU member states directly from conflict regions continues to be promising. Member states have provided safe and legal pathways to 14,422 persons so far, over half of the agreed 22,504 under the EU resettlement scheme.

The Commission also called on Greece and all member states to keep up the momentum in implementing the Joint Action Plan under the EU-Turkey Statement to improve the situation in the Greek islands. Daily crossings from Turkey to the islands have gone down by 98% from 10,000 persons in a single day in October 2015 to 43 a day now. Return operations have continued to be carried out with a total of 1,487 returns since the Statement was activated. Yet arrivals continue to outpace the number of returns from Greece to Turkey.

Remarks by EU Commissioner for migration, home affairs, and citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos

Factsheets on migration

All this week's key European Commission announcements can be found here