All aboard: EU policy train builds up steam after summer

The EU executive is expected to finally get to the heart of its five-year health agenda with the unveiling of Europe's Beating Cancer Plan and the much-awaited pharmaceutical strategy. The launch of both initiatives was confirmed for the fourth quarter of 2020 in the Commission's latest working programme.

In the wake of an "enlargement summit" in May that omitted the word enlargement altogether, the Western Balkans region is set to stay high on the Brussels agenda this fall and possibly even mark one or two milestones in the drawn-out process.

The second half of 2020 will be crucial for a range of European defence initiatives. It will also be crunch-time for Europeans to make yet another attempt at sorting out security matters on the global stage. Below, we update you on …

After more than four years of brinksmanship and delay it should surprise no one that the final act of the Brexit process – agreeing on an EU-UK trade deal – will go down to the wire.

The European Commission will table proposals next month to raise the EU's climate target for 2030, amid warnings from Eastern countries to safeguard jobs and growth from the coronavirus fallout.

The implementation of the EU’s recovery fund and taxation will dominate the second half of the year, as both issues will top the German presidency agenda, and new resources are needed to finance the stimulus package to respond to the coronavirus crisis.

After a turbulent start to 2020, in the second half of the year the EU will embark on a range of ambitious initiatives in the digital arena, some of which will be directly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and its knock-on effects.

With the EU's new food policy launched this spring, policymakers will now turn their attention back to the long-delayed reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the staple of the bloc's farming industry and the biggest item in its budget.

Europe's transport sector, already hard hit by the coronavirus outbreak, faces a crucial and possibly defining end to 2020. EU and global targets will start to bite, while new technologies will face a challenging acid test.