Article - Coming up: Women’s Day, future of EU, investment and health

Parliament will mark International Women’s Day on Monday 8 March with an address by Parliament President David Sassoli and a pre-recorded video message on women’s leadership during Covid crisis from New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Find out more about other events surrounding International Women's Day events organised by the Parliament.

On Tuesday, MEPs will vote on the InvestEU programme, which aims to boost strategic and innovative investments to help Europe recover from the current crisis as well as achieve its long-term goals of a green and digital transformation.

Another important item on Tuesday is EU4Health - MEPs will debate and cast their final vote on the €5.1 billion programme for EU action in the field of health for 2021-2027, aimed at boosting EU readiness for and crisis management of future health threats.

Wednesday will bring us closer to the Conference on the Future of Europe when the joint declaration will be signed by the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission. The Conference will be an opportunity for Europeans to express their opinions and get involved in setting the EU’s priorities.

On Monday MEPs will debate  on ways of combatting climate change by preventing so-called carbon leakage. This is when companies transfer production to countries with laxer greenhouse gas emission constraints than the EU. Parliament is expected to call for a carbon levy on imports from such countries. MEPs will vote on it on Wednesday.

Parliament is expected to call on the European Commission to introduce new rules holding businesses accountable and liable when they harm human rights, the environment or good governance. MEPs want corporate due diligence and corporate accountability rules to also apply to all companies that want to access the EU market. They will debate on Monday and vote on Wednesday.

MEPs are expected to express their support for LGBTIQ rights by calling for the EU to be an ‘‘LGBTIQ Freedom Zone.There will be a debate on Wednesday and a vote on Thursday. This is in response to the so-called ‘free of LGBT ideology zones that have been introduced by some local governments in Poland, a move strongly condemned by the European Parliament.

On Wednesday, MEPs will debate recent action by Polish, Hungarian and Slovenian authorities that could put the situation of independent media at risk.