European Union News - August 2009

The Résidence Palace building project in Brussels is progressing. The aim is for these new premises to house the European Summits and the meetings of Ministers starting from 2013. As the EU Member States wished, the building will be a reference for sustainable development.

A new EU-funded project aims to develop economically and environmentally efficient techniques for the production of biofuels. Called NEMO ('Novel high-performance enzymes and micro-organisms for conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to bioethanol'), the initiative will generate new ways of converting agricultural and forestry waste, such as straw and wood chips, into liquid biofuels.

On 1–3 September, the European Parliament’s buildings in Brussels will be crawling with Swedish ministers and officials. The ministers will be presenting the Swedish Presidency’s priorities to the Parliament’s committees. The committee presentations are public and can be followed on the Presidency website.

Since its launch in November 2008, the Europe's multilingual digital library Europeana has  doubled the number of objects to which users can access, reaching 4.6 million digitized contents. The Commission's objective is to reach 10 million by 2010. This objective comes along the public  debate opened by the Commission on the challenges of digitization of books in Europe, and the implications of this with projects such as Google Books.

The European Commission asked EFSA to assess the current EU limits which exist for six different types of toxins in shellfish, known as marine biotoxins and the testing methods established in EU legislation. Marine biotoxins are poisonous substances produced by different algae that can accumulate in shellfish.

The European Union, year after year, is being hit by forest fires. This puts European citizens at risk and causes tremendous costs economically and to nature and wildlife. Therefore 55 partners, with support of the European Commission, have joined forces in a project for rapid mapping of places at risk via satellites, the SAFER project.

The EIB’s Interim Revised OFC Policy was approved by the Board of Directors on July 14th 2009 following extensive consultations with EU Member States, key expert Lead Organisations, International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and other concerned stakeholders, including civil society organisations. The Interim Revised OFC Policy is now published on the EIB’s website.

The European Commission has released in its Communication dated August 2st, 2009, COM (2009) 432 final, the final evaluation of eEurope 2005 Action Plan and the multi-year program (2003-2006) for the monitoring plan eEurope 2005, the dissemination of good practices and improving network security and information (Modinis). In this Communication, the Commission considers that, despite the existence of some weaknesses, the overall results are positive.

Within the scope of the 7th Framework Programme, the Commission's Research Directorate General  has published a Call for Tenders for the elaboration of a study about the investments in joint and open R&D programmes and the analysis of their economic impact. Interested bidders may submit their offers until October 7th 2009.

The representatives of the EU Member States in the Health Security Committee and in the Early Warning and Response System, with the scientific support of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the European Medicines Agency, have discussed a shared approach on target and priority groups for vaccination against Influenza A(H1N1). As a result, they adopted on August 25th a policy statement proposed by the European Commission which outlines a shared European approach towards identifying target and priority groups for vaccination.

The Annual Performance Monitoring Report about the achievements made within Progress Programme in the year 2008 has been delivered by the Commission's Employment DG. This Report analyses the different aspects of the programme, highlights its achievements to date and outlines the steps that still need to be taken.

The European Commission announced on August 24th 2009 the names of the 52 finalists that are going to compete for the European eGovernment Awards 2009, as well as those projects which have been awarded with a Good Practice label in the framework of these Award. The Awards ceremony will take place on November 19th 2009 in Malmö, Sweden, within the 5th Ministerial eGovernment Conference.