Ending youth unemployment. Although the European Youth Guarantee commitment has breathed life into successful schemes and initiatives at the Member State level, it has failed to sufficiently equip young people with the skills required to match the demands of local labour markets: how can the EU help Member States to shift their focus to the local level in order to ensure its flexible and efficient implementation?
Knock, Knock! Despite the aim of the Commission’s Social Investment Package (SIP) to include all citizens into society, there are still approximately 4.1 million homeless people across Europe and huge numbers of young Europeans stuck in the rent trap: what can the EU do to support Member States in ensuring access to affordable housing for everyone?
Clearing the air. Europe’s car regulations have historically provided a global benchmark for best emissions practice, but after the Volkswagen scandal a number of Member States are at a stand-off with the EU’s watered down regulations: if Member States are already resistant to the existing regulations, how can the EU ensure that they follow the proposed 2030 Air Pollutants Directive?
Is zero tolerance enough? Following the Istanbul Convention, the EU has put gender sensitive and specialised laws in place for women affected by violence, but sexual harassment is still prevalent across all European cities, and often goes unreported: how can the EU further support Member States and NGO’s to ensure that public spaces become a safe haven for women?
European ports as gateways to drugs. Despite improved measures to reduce the demand and supply of drugs, Europe’s ports remain lucrative markets for international drug trade: how can the EU crack down on the drug trade in port cities without unnecessarily restricting legitimate trade activities?
Uber, Etsy and Airbnb – The future of the sharing economy. With the landmark decision from the European Court of Justice on Uber’s legal status and several Member States already pushing for stricter controls: how should the EU proceed with its regulatory response to peer-to-peer services?
Racing against the digital clock. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will move Europe from a laissez-faire regulator to the continent with the most stringent data protection laws in the world; however, complexity of data processing and the number of industries it applies to could lead to a large number of companies failing to comply: how can the EU ensure that businesses and Member States will be ready for the implementation of the GDPR in 2018?
Local democracy 2.0. Supported by information technologies, good citizen engagement practices such as e-voting flourish at the local level throughout Europe, demonstrating that active citizenship can yield to a more successful implementation of local policies: what steps could the EU take to encourage more citizen participation in local governance?
Mind the gap! The increase in urbanisation across Europe has been accompanied by a gradual shift towards using more sustainable transport modes, but offering more attractive alternatives to using a car is still a struggle: how can the EU support European cities to improve transport infrastructure to change urban mobility habits and reduce car use?