European Union News - 29 June 2010

MEPs are neither trying to ban the sale of eggs by the dozen nor the sale or marketing of Nutella. MEP Renate Sommer, who is steering legislation on food labelling through the European Parliament, stressed that there will be no changes to selling foods by number. Selling eggs by the dozen, for example, will not be banned.

The European Commission has handed on June 2010 a mandate for the development of relevent standards on  common charging system for electric cars, scooters and bicycles to the European Standardisation Organisations bodies, CEN-CENELEC and ETSI. Thanks to this mandate plugs and connectors will use the same standard all across Europe, providing a true European solution independently of brands or countries. The Commission expects that the standard will be ready by mid-2011.

The European Commission has presented a campaign aiming to inform European passengers about their rights against problems which could appear when travelling around Europe. At the beginning of the Summer season, when millions of Europeans are starting or planning their holidays, the Commission provides them with a multilingual website where they can find full information about their rights as passengers.

According to the 7th Annual Report presented by the European Commission to the Parliament and the Council of June 25th (COM(2010)334 final) which gives the overview of third country trade actions against the European Union, the number of new investigations and trade defence measures imposed in 2009 was very high. In the Commission opinion, the standards applied in a number of measures against EU exporters leave something to be desired.

The 10 films pre-selected to compete for 2010 European Parliament LUX Prize were unveiled on Monday June 28th, at the Brussels European Film Festival. These films, made in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Romania and the UK, reflect the creative excellence of European cinema, which Parliament is pleased to support.

The Official Journal of the European Union publishes in its issue dated June 29th the notification of proposed concentration between the German transportation company  Deutsche Bahn and British Arriva. The Commission invites any interested party to send its comments over this operation until 10 days after publication in the OJ.