The aftermath of the terror attacks in Paris and heightened terror alert in Brussels is set to dominate news in the week ahead as French authorities continue their efforts to piece together details relating to the events of Nov. 13. Meanwhile European Union lawmakers are set to discuss the bloc’s responses to the attacks, including stepping up checks on its own citizens.

1) The main focus across the EU is expected to stay on Belgium and France, where police have already conducted countless raids over the past week as part of their investigation into the terrorist attacks in Paris. Authorities have already arrested several suspects in relation to the attacks as they search for further clues and try to locate the whereabouts of the attackers who made it it out alive.

2) Eurozone finance ministers will meet in Brussels on Monday to discuss their budget plans for 2016. Their meeting comes a week after the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said the budgets submitted by Italy, Lithuania, Austria  and Spain risk violating the bloc’s spending rules and urged them to ensure they will meet EU targets.The EU introduced new and stricter fiscal rules for countries using the euro in 2013 as a response to the sovereign debt crisis, which put future of the eurozone in doubt. The rules, whose main goal is to keep public debt in check, give the commission more power to oversee the bloc’s economies and to ask governments for changes in their budgets. The procedure must be signed off by the bloc’s finance ministers. Read More »