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Europe now has a window of opportunity – but one that will not stay open forever. To make the most of the current momentum, the Commission is tabling its work programme for the next 14 months to the end of 2018. This builds on the Roadmap for a More United, Stronger and More Democratic Union, which President Juncker presented alongside his State of the Union address on 13 September 2017. It will help keep Europe on track by continuing to deliver on its positive agenda, and it will ensure that Europe's focus remains firmly on the big things, where European action has a clear and demonstrable added value.
The focus of the work programme for 2018 is two-fold. First, the work programme sets out a limited number of targeted legislative actions to complete its work in priority policy areas over the next months. The Commission will table all legislative proposals no later than May 2018. This will allow the European Parliament and Council the time and space to complete the legislative work before Europeans give their democratic verdict in the European elections of June 2019 on what we have achieved together.
Secondly, the work programme also presents a number of initiatives that have a more forward-looking perspective, as the new Union of 27 shapes its own future for 2025. These initiatives reflect the debate kick-started by the Commission's White Paper on the Future of Europe and the State of the Union address. They can all be achieved by making full use of the untapped potential of the Lisbon Treaty. We will deliver all of these initiatives by the end of the mandate.
As in previous years, the work programme also proposes a number of proposals that follow on from regulatory fitness and performance (REFIT) reviews of current laws, taking into account the opinions of the REFIT platform. To allow the co-legislators to focus on delivering the proposals that really matter, this work programme contains a significant number of pending proposals that we suggest to withdraw given that there is no foreseeable agreement in the European Parliament and the Council or they no longer serve their purpose or are technically outdated. This work programme also continues the process of repealing pieces of legislation that have become obsolete. In parallel, we are publishing an overview of the Commission's better regulation agenda and its results together with the REFIT Scoreboard, which sets out in detail how we are following-up on REFIT platform opinions and on-going efforts to evaluate and review existing laws