1. The EU and Canada signed a trade deal worth over €25 billion per year, with bilateral trade between the two expected to increase by 23% and the EU’s GDP by €11.6 billion per year. The agreement will remove 99.4% of the remaining tariff barriers on industrial goods and 93% of agricultural tariffs. The UK Prime Minister commented that "The EU has delivered its largest free trade agreement ever and proved that it can be an asset for British business".

2.  Negotiations to form a coalition government in Germany will feature Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, after the Greens pulled out of negotiations with the CDU, citing impossible to bridge policy differences. Members of the SPD will have to endorse their leadership’s decision to start formal negotiations with the CDU at a party congress on Sunday in Berlin.

3. Members of the European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee voted in favour of a report calling for the revision of the EU treaties in order to grant the European Parliament the right to autonomously decide on its internal organisation, calendar and seat. MEPs have been trying for years to stop the monthly trek to Strasbourg, where the EP must hold 12 sessions a year even if its official seat is in Brussels. The MEP who authored the report called the current arrangement "costly, inefficient, wasteful and environmentally-damaging".

4. A report by the European Commission, which examined data provided by EU member states, found that "welfare tourism" or exploitation of the benefits system of mobile EU citizens is not a significant problem. The report shows that the vast majority of EU citizens move to another EU member state to work. Recent intra-EU mobility flows generated an overall income gain of around 24 billion euros for EU citizens, with the GDP of EU-15 estimated to have increased by almost 1% in the long-term as a result of post-enlargement mobility (2004-2009).

5. A poll by the EEF, the manufacturing sector’s trade body, found that 85%  of British manufacturers would choose to stay in the European Union if a referendum on membership was held. Terry Scuoler, EEF Chief Executive, said: “Britain must not gamble on its future in Europe. The stakes are enormous. It is naive to think we can simply pull up the drawbridge and carry on as normal. The debate must move on to how we can make Europe work to support jobs, growth and higher living standards.”

6. Members of the European Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee reached an agreement on the EU’s Consumer Programme, which aims to support actions in the fields of product safety, consumer information and education, redress and enforcement. MEPs agreed that EU level consumer organisations get support from the Consumer Programme. The new rules will also allow the funding of comparison websites to facilitate consumers’ access to reliable, comparable and easily accessible information on prices and quality of goods or services.

7. The EU moved even closer towards a Banking Union when Finance Ministers agreed on proposals to give the European Central Bank powers to supervise the eurozone’s 6,000 banks. But Germany rejected suggestions that the European Stability Mechanism would be able to help banks directly without making the host members state liable for bank rescues. The UK won exemptions that will allow it to retain sole responsibility for the regulation on the City. These exemptions will remain in place while there are at least 4 non-eurozone EU members states.

The European Movement UK is Britain’s longest standing pro-European organization, campaigning for decades to inform the debate around the benefits of EU membership. 

We are a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization, funded exclusively by our members. Visit www.euromove.org.uk to see how you can join us and help keep Britain in the EU.