European Union News - 24 April 2009

A new European platform for Roma inclusion has been created to improve coordination of national actions to tackle the exclusion of Europe's biggest ethnic minority. Its first meeting brings together national governments, the EU, other international organisations and civil society and aims to stimulate cooperation and exchange of experience on successful Roma inclusion policies.

The European Commission welcomes the formal adoption of the climate and energy package and legislation to reduce CO2 emissions from new cars and transport fuels. The measures, agreed in December, put Europe firmly on the road towards becoming a low-carbon economy and will increase energy security. The package sets legally binding targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below 1990 levels and to increase the share of renewable energy to 20%, both by 2020. It will also help achieve the EU's objective of improving energy efficiency by 20% within the same timeframe. The package makes Europe the first region in the world to implement such far-reaching, legally binding climate and energy targets.

The European Commission has published a call for projects within the program "People", 2009, within the VII Framework Program for research, technological development and demonstration, by which it will fund partnership initiatives and university-business gateway between the European Union.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published in the Official Journal of the European Union on April 24th 2009, the launch of a selection procedure that aims to draw up a reserve list of external experts to be considered for the membership of a working group of scientific experts to externally review the quality of the scientific outputs of the Authority.