The European Parliament will hold a plenary session in Brussels on Thursday 16th and Friday 17th April.

The agenda includes a resolution on how the EU should deal with the corona crisis and guidelines to securing the economy. MEPs will also adopt a number of new legal requirements for the current EU budget to ensure that a maximum amount of resources can flow as flexibly as possible.

The Parliament will also vote on the Emergency Support Instrument. The ESI is meant to help Member States tackle the consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak but also to further reinforce the Union Civil Protection Mechanism/rescEU to allow wider stock-piling and coordination of essential resource distribution across Europe.

MEPs will also vote to postpone by one year the entry into force of new rules regarding the production of medical devices such as respiratory ventilators and face masks. In light of the COVID-19 crisis it became clear that the deadline date will not be met and keeping it would put at risk the availability of essential medical devices necessary in the fight against the virus.

The meeting will take place via video transmission, votes will be carried out via a secure process by email.