Welcome to the European Union (EU) weekly e-mail update, which provides a quick "signposting service" to the latest developments in the EU of most relevance to Wales and the work of the National Assembly for Wales.

Highlight of the week will be publication of the draft legislative proposals for the EU Structural Funds for the period 2014-2020, which is of particular given the value of the current funding (circa £1.9 billion for 2007-2013) from the EU to the two regional programmes in Wales. Proposals for the future of the Common Agricultural Policy, another important dossier to Wales, will be published next week (12 October).

Last week the European Commission published proposals for a European Financial Transactions Tax following an extensive consultation and political debate on this issue. This was one of the headlines in the annual State of the Union address by the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso to the European Parliament on 27 September, where he outlined his priorities for the coming year in anticipation of the European Commission 2012 Work Programme which will be published in the coming weeks.