European Union News - Information Society

The European Parliament adopted a non-binding report on a proposal for closer cooperation between EU Member States in the fight against terrorism and cross-border crime. The EP backs the plans but wants to beef up the rules on personal data protection. The report was adopted with 529 votes in favour, 65 against and 24 abstentions.

More than half of Europeans are now regular Internet users, 80% of them have broadband connections and 60% of public services in the EU are fully available online. Two thirds of schools and half of doctors make use of fast Internet connections, thanks to strong broadband growth in Europe.

Results of Flash Eurobarometer survey on Data Protection that was conducted in January 2008 have been published. Previous waves of the survey had been performed three times before, in 1991, 1996 and 2003. Fieldwork was carried out from January 8th to 12th, 2008. Over 27,000 randomly selected citizens aged 15 years and over were interviewed in the 27 EU Member States.

On 15th  April 2008 the Official Journal of the European Union has published the Commission repection of a notification of a proposed concentration pursuant to Article 4 of Council Regulation 139/2004 by which the undertakings Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd acquires within control of Samsung Opto-Electronics GmbH (‘Samsung Opto-Electronics’, Germany), Samsung Opto-Electronics France S.A.S. (‘Samsung Opto-Electronics France’, France) and Samsung Opto-Electronics UK (‘Samsung Opto-Electronics UK’, United Kingdom), which are all indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries of Samsung Techwin Co., Ltd (‘Samsung Techwin’, Korea) by way of purchase of assets.

Parliament adopted two reports on cultural industries, the first calls for a new task force on culture and the creative economy, a programme to support the culture industries the second calls more should be done to ensure that EU programmes reflect Europe's common cultural heritage.

European Parliament (EP) President Hans-Gert Pöttering announced the adoption of written declarations on the subtitling of all public-service television programmes in the European Union (EU) and on the murder of the human rights activist Munir Said Thalib.

On the 10th April the European Commission (EC) published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJ), its decision from the 18th March 2008 to release a list of bodies whose researchers may access confidential data for scientific purposes. The decision have been released under Acts adopted under the EC Treaty/Euratom.

European Commission approved PEACE III, the European Territorial Cooperation Programme for Northern Ireland and the Border Regions of Ireland (Louth, Monaghan, Cavan, Leitrim, Sligo and Donegal) for the period 2007-2013 period with €225 million budget. A new open call for proposal is open now.

The European Commission has introduced rules to harmonise conditions for the take-off of pan-European mobile communication services on aircraft. These services will allow businesspeople and consumers to receive and make calls and messages safely with their own mobile phones while flying all over Europe. This means that the 90% of European air passengers that already carry mobile phones on-board aircraft can remain contactable during flights.

The European Commmision decided on 28 March 2008 to initiate proceedings in the case COMP/M.4942 — Nokia/Navteq. The information has been published in the OJ last 5th April 2008.

The OJ has published on 4th april the Commission Decision of 17 March 2008 amending Decision 2007/176/EC as regards the List of standards and/or specifications for electronic communications networks, services and associated facilities and services in order to include the Digital Video Broadcasting (Handheld) DVB-H as an standard.

The European Commission, as part of procedures relating the implrementation of the competition policy, has released its official Prior notification of a concentration (Case COMP/M.5091 — Tech Data/Scribona) in the offical Journal.

On 19 March 2008, the Commission received a notification of a proposed concentration pursuant by which the undertakings Tech Data AB (Sweden), Tech Data Norge (Norway) and Tech Data Finland Oy (Finland), which are wholly owned subsidiaries of Tech Data Corporation (United States of America, collectively ‘Tech Data’), would acquire control of the undertaking Scribona AB (publ) (‘Scribona’, Sweden) by way of purchase of assets.