European Parliament
-23/24 April: Committee on Industry, Research and Energy
-23/24 April: Committee on Foreign Affairs
-23/24 April: Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development
-23/24 April: Committee on Fisheries
-24/25 April: Committee on International Trade
-24/25 April: Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety
Council of Ministers
-25 April: COREPER I
-25 April: COREPER II
-24 April : General Affairs Council (GAC) (Luxembourg)
ACP Group
-23/24 April: 2nd Meeting of Experts in charge of ACP-EU Dialogue on Migration
-25 April: Meeting of the ACP-EC Development Finance Cooperation
-25 April: W/G on the Future perspectives of the ACP Group
-25 April: African Union
-26/27 April:  SEDT Department
Research events
-23/24 April: 7th Regional Briefing “Building resilience in small island economies: from vulnerabilities to opportunities” (Mauritius)
-23/27 April: The 10th meeting of the International Resource Panel

You can also read our newspaper “CTA Brussels Daily” (fed by our Twitter account), follow our new Facebook group CTABrussels and our Twitter account CTABrussels to receive up-to-date information on EU-ACP events.

Several weeks ago, the Brussels development Briefing on Small Island economies was held with great success. As a follow-up, the CTA and its partners, and in collaboration with the Mauritius Government, are organising the 7th Regional Development Briefing. The event, which  will be held in Mauritius  on 23-24th April 2012, will gather representatives from the Pacific, the Caribbean and Africa to exchange views and identify what urgent and concrete policy actions of common interest need to be in place.
The Briefing will be intended to share knowledge on the main challenges and opportunities of the small island economies, notably in key areas such as trade, climate change and natural disasters, as well as new economic opportunities for rural areas (new markets, green growth, services, ICTS...).
The Regional Briefings are linked to the Brussels Development Briefings that CTA, the European Commission (DG DEVCO), the ACP Secretariat , Concord (the Platform of European Development NGOs) as well as various media partners, organise every two months since 2007 on key issues affecting Rural Development.

The event will be webstreamed live

According to a resolution recently adopted by MEPs,  the Seventh Environment Action Programme (EAP), the EU's next flagship environmental strategy, must outline steps and set targets to protect the EU's environment and encourage a more efficient use of energy and natural resources. As the current sixth edition is set to expire in July, MEPs are calling upon the Commission to propose a Seventh EAP as soon as possible.

As the EU failed to meet its overall biodiversity target for 2010, the European Parliament insists that the EU must prioritize the preservation and restoration of damaged ecosystems. In a resolution adopted last week, the EP also calls for the naming and phasing-out of environmentally harmful subsidies by 2020.

According to recent updates, the European Commission held a high level conference this week to mark the launch of the new "World Input-Output Database". This new database, which allows trade analysts to have a better view on the global value chains created by world trade, reveals the value added embodied in goods and services as they are traded internationally.