A high-level interparliamentary conference on migration and asylum, organised by the European Parliament and the German Bundestag, in cooperation with the Portuguese and Slovene parliaments, and the European Commission, brought together in Brussels and virtually on Thursday lawmakers from across Europe and migration experts to explore new ideas for a sustainable EU migration and asylum system.

On Wednesday, the Parliament and the Council reached a provisional agreement on deploying additional EU funds to mitigate the immediate effects of the Covid-19 crisis under the REACT-EU instrument.

On Monday, Budgets Committee Members approved €823m in EU aid from the European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF) to be distributed to 8 Member States, EP press service reported. More than €132.7m to be made in advance payments to Germany, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Hungary, and Portugal in response to the major public health emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.

European Parliament warned on Friday against “risk of abuse of power” and called on the Commission to step up its efforts by taking legal action where necessary. On Friday, Parliament adopted a resolution that takes stock of the state of European democratic values in the context of national measures to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, with 496 votes to 138 and 49 abstentions, EP press service reported.

After 10 weeks of hard grinding negotiations, Parliament’s budget negotiators and the Council came out of the impasse and on Tuesday reached a preliminary political agreement on the EU’s long-term budget for 2021-2027.

The EP Budgets Committee adopted on Wednesday a resolution setting the overall level of the 2021 EU budget, the first of the new MFF, at just under €182bn in commitment appropriations, which beefs it up with new €15bn compared to the Commission's suggestion.

Three years after the atrocious assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, lawmakers from the EP Civil Liberties Committee have again raised their voices in defence of journalism and media freedom.

In a resolution, adopted by the EP Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) on Tuesday, MEPs zoomed in on the emergency measures, such as lockdowns and sanctions regimes, adopted by all 27 EU countries in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and their impact on democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental rights. They underlined that these constraints pose a “risk of abuse of power”.

The European Parliament will hold its first ever European Gender Equality Week from 26 to 29 October, initiated by the Women’s Rights Committee. All events will be livestreamed. 

Lawmakers on Friday decided on the upcoming seven years of the common agricultural policy (CAP), one of the main EU's spending programmes. Voting on three regulations – about strategic plans, common market organisation and financing, management and monitoring of the CAP, they said that post-2020 EU farming should be greener, fairer, and more robust.