The next long-term EU budget will be on the agenda of European affairs ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday (17 November).
The EU Commission has adjusted its proposals for merging agriculture and cohesion funding under "National and Regional Partnership Plans"in future, but EU capitals and MEPs remain concerned about how much say will be given to local authorities on spending.
The ministers are also expected to green-light opening negotiations with the UK on linking their respective carbon markets and sanitary rules.
And they will discuss the agenda for the last European Council of the year, taking place on 19 December.
Also on Monday, EU officials will meet with representatives from Albania to hold enlargement negotiations in the "cluster" areas of agriculture, food safety, and regional policy, with Tirana hoping to join the bloc in 2027.
Still on Monday, EU agriculture ministers will discuss how to manage farming funds post-2027 and trade with Ukraine.
The EU commissioner for competition and the Green Deal, Teresa Ribera, will also address MEPs in the special committee on housing.
To kick off her week, EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen will meet with the Finnish president Alexander Stubb.
Later on Tuesday (18 November), she will be meeting Moldova’s prime minister, Alexandru Munteanu.
The meeting builds on last month’s summit conclusions, in which EU leaders stated it was "crucial" for the continent "to advance Europe's digital transformation, reinforce its sovereignty and strengthen its own open digital ecosystem".
Macron has been raising concerns for years over Europe's high dependence on US tech, lately fuelling the controversial idea that European regulation is undermining innovation, when experts often say the problem is the persistent shortage of venture capital, risk-taking culture, and late-stage funding that forces promising European start-ups to relocate or be bought by US companies.
"While Brussels' recent deregulatory turn is framed as a much-needed competitiveness boost, the real obstacles to Europe's digital renaissance lie elsewhere: persistent underfunding, siloed markets, and reliance on non-EU infrastructures," writes Raluca Csernatoni, from the Brussels-based think tank Carnegie Europe.
Meanwhile, the "digital omnibus" will be unveiled by the European Commission on Wednesday (19 November), including potential changes to the flagship EU privacy rules (GDPR).
The commission pitched the omnibus as simplifying digital rules, but activities see it as lowering standards and deregulating.
The Brussels-executive will unveil a plan on the same day to facilitate the movement of military troops across Europe and to scale up its defence industry, which is also the main topic of the Berlin Security Conference, taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday.
With US president Donald Trump threatening the Nato architecture that has given Europeans peace of mind for decades, and with war raging in Ukraine without any signs of a ceasefire, the message coming from the commission is that Europe should take responsibility for its own defence in future.
"We are living in the most momentous and dangerous of times ... we are in an era of rearmament," EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen warned earlier in March.
For their part, EU foreign affairs ministers will, on Thursday (20 November), discuss the war in Ukraine, the fragile ceasefire in the Middle East, and the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.
The EU is preparing a 20th round of Russia sanctions and trying to persuade Belgium, which holds most of Russia's frozen assets, to back an EU loan for Ukraine using the immobilised funds.
At the same time, Israel is pushing for the EU to formally retract its sanctions proposal, first issued in September, before Trump secured a ceasefire in Gaza.
The war in Sudan was the main subject of last week's UN Human Rights Council special session, with UN high commissioner for human rights Volker Türk recently calling the situation "absolutely devastating."
Again on Thursday, foreign ministers will also have an informal lunch with ministers from ASEAN countries to discuss EU–South East Asia relations, followed-up by a full ministerial meeting on Friday (21 November).
Still on Thursday, EU energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen will discuss with MEPs in the internal market committee how to ensure a secure and affordable energy sector in the EU.
The UN COP30 climate summit is set to conclude in Belém, Brazil, on Friday.
South Africa will host the annual G20 summit on Saturday and Sunday (22 and 23 November), which the US has pledged to boycott, accusing the government of "persecution" and "human rights abuses" against the white minority (Afrikaners) in South Africa.
South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa has rejected the claims, saying that "boycott politics doesn't work" and that the US' "absence is their [own] loss”.
Ahead of the G20 meeting, von der Leyen and European Council president António Costa will meet Ramaphosa for an EU-South Africa summit.
Elena is EUobserver's editor-in-chief. She is from Spain and has studied journalism and new media in Spanish and Belgian universities. Previously she worked on European affairs at VoteWatch Europe and the Spanish news agency EFE.
Elena is EUobserver's editor-in-chief. She is from Spain and has studied journalism and new media in Spanish and Belgian universities. Previously she worked on European affairs at VoteWatch Europe and the Spanish news agency EFE.