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The European Parliament adopted a regulation which will sharply fall the cost of using mobile phones, smartphones and tablets when travelling abroad within the EU. In addition, the regulation will enable clients to buy roaming services from suppliers other than their home service suppliers and open up the market to new entrants, so as to boost competition and thus reduce prices.

The Council adopted a directive aimed a creating a system for the interconnection of central, commercial and companies registers and at improving access to up-to-date and trustworthy information on companies. The new rules are a response to the increasing demand for access to information on companies in a cross-border context.

The European Parliament approved a report which asks to national authorities to reorient EU aviation policy to pay special attention to the needs of regional airports. According to MEPs, boosting regional development and reduce congestion at major air hubs could be unlocked by integrating them in the Trans-European Transport Networks.

According to the European Commission, differences in national VAT rules on vouchers lead to serious market inefficiencies. For this reason, it proposes new rules to ensure the uniform tax treatment of all types of vouchers across all Member States.

The European leaders in deployment of telehealth as they have succeeded in integrating telehealth into standard patient treatments, are Denmark, the UK and some regions of Italy and Spain. Telehealth is healthcare empowered by Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Such healthcare supports independent living of individuals and contributes to more efficient health and social care services delivery, according to the Commission.

The Institute of European Environment Policy (IEEP) published a study financed by the European Commission that shows the need to change to be able to meet the new 2020 biodiversity targets for agriculture, and this requires action on several different fronts. Indeed, the report suggests to address five main issues.