European Union News - Information Society

As of the 8th of May 2008, the European Commission invites feedback by industry, consumers and other interested stakeholders to review the functioning and effectiveness of the EU Roaming Regulation, which entered into force on 30 June 2007.

The European Commission has published two new Calls for Proposals within the support framework of the European audiovisual sector called MEDIA 2007. The calls have a total budget of 7.9 million euros. The calls are for Support to Video on Demand and Digital Cinema Distribution and Support for the implementation of Pilot Projects.

On 24 April 2008, the Commission received a notification of a proposed concentration by which the undertaking Nokia Corporation (‘Nokia’, Finland) acquires control of the whole of the undertaking Trolltech ASA (‘Trolltech’, Norway) by way of a public bid announced on 28 January 2008.

The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of TietoEnator, a Finnish provider of information technology services by Jersey-based investment fund Nordic Capital. The Commission concluded that the proposed transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area ("EEA") or any substantial part of it.

Under Acts adopted under the EC Treaty/Euratom Treaty whose publication is not obligatory, the European Commission published, on the 6th of May, its Commission Decision of 11 December 2007 on State Aid C 47/06 (ex N 648/05) Tax credit introduced by France for the creation of video games (notified under document number C(2007) 6070)

Last 1st May it has been published the first call for proposal of the AAL Joint Programme with a total budget of 57.7 M€ to develop projects under the topic "ICT based solutions for Prevention and Management of Chronic Conditions of Elderly People".

The European Commission, via the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, have launched a Call for proposals for projects supporting information activities for young people and youth workers. The calls for proposals, framed within the ‘Youth in Action’ programme, will dispose of a budget of 900,000 Euros.

On the 30th of April 2008, the European Commission published the outline of a new Code of Conduct for responsible nanosciences and nanotechnologies research. This set of regulations provides Member States, employers, research funders, researchers and more generally all individuals and civil society organisations involved or interested in nanosciences and nanotechnologies (N&N) research (all stakeholders) with guidelines favouring a responsible and open approach to N&N research in the Community.

The European Commission has given notice of the launch of the call for proposals under the work programme for 2008 of the Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (2007 to 2013). The Call has an allotted 39 million euros.

The Official Journal of the European Union has published last 23 April 2008 the opinion of the European Data Protection Supervisor (Peter HUSTINX) on the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on ‘Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in Europe: steps towards a policy framework’ COM(2007) 96.

The Official Journal of the European Union has published the final position of the European Commision in relation to the case of concentration between Syniverse and BSG group by way of purchase of shares.