Our cover star this issue is Swedish EPP deputy Tomas Tobé, who says he’s confident of winning over his MEP colleagues and forging a large parliamentary majority behind his proposals for the EU’s new Migration Pact. He tells Andreas Rogal that this approach could well be enough to break the current Council stalemate on asylum and migration.
In our news and current affairs pages, Mental Health Europe Director, Claudia Marinetti, tells Brian Johnson that we need to value mental health equally to physical health. Ahead of the European Prostate Cancer Awareness Day, Greek deputy Anna-Michelle Asimakopoulou argues that the EU needs to extend the scope of the Beating Cancer plan to include Prostate Cancer, while Polish MEP and former footballer Tomasz Frankowski says that it’s vital that the EU reforms it sports sector.
Elsewhere, Spanish deputy Domènec Ruiz Devesa says that reforms to the European electoral laws to make constituencies pan-European, could increase legitimacy and bring Europe closer to its citizens, while Polish ECR deputy Anna Fotyga writes about the threat of sunken munitions and chemical residues.
In our first feature we look at European Gender Equality week, with contributions from FEMM Committee Chair, Austrian member Evelyn Regner, and Irish deputy, Frances Fitzgerald.
Our second feature focuses on EU SMEs, and we have Parliament’s rapporteur on the INI report on a new EU SME Strategy Italian ECR MEP Paolo Borchia’s views, as well as Parliament’s Austrian EPP Group Vice-President, Othmar Karas.
We close with our regular ‘5 Questions with…’ column, which this issue features Romanian Socialist deputy, Carmen Avram.