European Union News - 22 July 2010

Commission has published Annual Report on EU Customs actions to enforce intellectual property rights. In 2009, EU Customs took action in 43,500 cases involving several million products suspected of being counterfeited or pirated at the external borders of the EU, according to this report.

€1.85 million of EU funding helped the researchers to explore how dozens of databases from different organisations can be linked via peer-to-peer technology to improve response time and avoid duplication of efforts in cases of emergency.

The Official Journal of the European Union published on 22 July 2010, Council Directive 2010/45/EU of 13 July 2010 amending Directive 2006/112/EC on the common system of value added tax as regards the rules on invoicing. These new rules will enter into force on the 20th day following its publication and Member states will have to adopt the due provisions to comply with it by 31 December 2012.

In order to support the testing phase for the reference framework for sustainable cities, the Commission intends to contract technical assistance to organize the services and procedures in this phase, which will involve between 50 and 70 selected cities. Interested parties may submit their proposals to the Commission until September 15.

The European Commission has published in the Official Journal its Recommendation of 13 July 2010 on guidelines for the development of national co-existence measures to avoid the unintended presence of GMOs in conventional and organic crops. The objective of co-existence measures is to prevent the potential economic loss and impact of the admixture of GM and non-GM crops (including organic crops).