European Union News - 27 September 2012

The European Commission seeks to close loopholes in current legislation on drug precursors - legal chemicals contained in a wide range of products, including pharmaceuticals, perfumes and plastics, but which can also be illegally diverted to produce narcotics. It is proposed to reinforce the controls on specific chemicals, both within the Single Market and at the EU borders through Customs.

The Economic Affairs Committee in the European Parliament wants to apply new updates to the EU directive and regulation on markets in financial instruments, that would apply to almost all such instruments and almost all market players, in order to get that financial products are tailored to the investors' needs, and so they should be less likely to be misled.

The European Commission presented am ambitious package of proposals to boost the international competitiveness of the EU's aviation industry, which include opening negotiations with key partners to access new business opportunities in the fast growing markets, developing new tools to fight unfair competition and creating the right regulatory conditions to stimulate investment.

An EU-funded research project, the Eurocloud project, looks set to drastically cut the electricity and the installation costs of servers in cloud computing data centres. It has adapted low-power microprocessor technologies, typically used in mobile phones, to work on a much larger scale. Preliminary measurements show that using these technologies reduces power needs by 90%, compared to conventional servers.

Members of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) adopted an opinion on the cost of non-Europe. They stressed that it is important in mapping a way out of the financial crisis, but also because it is crucial to the success of the Europe 2020 strategy and the next Multiannual Financial Framework.