European Union News - 13 January 2012

The measure proposed by the European Commission intends to deliver One Stop Shop for all electronically delivered services. According to the Commission, as from 1st January 2015, it will benefit businesses dealing with multiple VAT obligations that can be very burdensome and costly. The One Stop Shop approach for EU trade across borders will be applied first to e-commerce, broadcasting and telecom services. In the future the Commission will seek to extend the One Stop Shop to other goods and services.

According to a recent published Commission's report, if the EU waste legislation is fully implemented, it would save €72 billion a year, increase the annual turnover of the EU waste management and recycling sector by €42 billion and create over 400,000 jobs by 2020.

Eurostat published its latest statistics on the active ageing in the EU which show that the employment rate for persons aged 60-64 increased from 23% in 2000 to 31% in 2010 and from 50% to 61% for those aged 55-59. With regard to the statistics by country, the share of those aged 55 and over varied between 21% in Ireland and 33% in Germany and Italy in 2010.

A Commission's report recently published which provides an outlook on agricultural commodity market developments, shows that the agricultural commodity prices are expected to stay firm over the medium term.

MEPs at the Civil Liberties Committee debated on the concerns as to whether the laws implementing Hungary's new constitution are compatible with EU rules and values. Some MEPs favoured awaiting the European Commission's analysis of the laws, while some MEPs proposed a "fundamental rights check" to determine whether there is a risk of a serious breach of EU values.