The EU-De-Briefing on the results of the European Council summit, held on March 29th at the German Retailers Association (HDE) in Berlin, not only discussed the Council´s official agenda and the perspectives for the new EU 2020 Strategy. Main focus of the discussion was the financial situation in Greece.

Already the extraordinary summit of the EU heads of states, on February 11th, signaled support for Greece in case of its bankruptcy. The summit of March 25th and 26th therefore rather determined the plan to follow in this case and what measures should be taken. In the result, the European Council agreed on a package consisting of bilateral loans from the member states and of IMF funds. Regarding the Commission´s proposals for the new EU 2020 Strategy only parts were taken up by the Council. Especially the topics "education" and the "fight against poverty" were postponed to the next summit in June.

The following discussion with more than 130 stakeholders on the EU-De-Briefing focussed on climate policy, especially the continuation of negotiations until the Cancun summit of December 2010 and the regulation of the banking sector in the context of the coming G20 summit to be held in Toronto in June.

Next event of the Network EM Germany is an EU-Briefing on the Commission’s work programme on April 16th in Berlin.