European Union News - 2008

In his Annual Report for 2007, the Ombudsman already promised to explore ways to make his decisions more reader-friendly, aiming to provide a better service to complainants and to offer clearer guidance, to both citizens and officials. After carefully examining various options for change, the Ombudsman has decided to adopt a new style of decision as from September 2008.

The Official Journal of the European Union has published on the 9th September 2008 the results of the aircraft inspections in 2007. A total of 8.594 inspections from 132 different States that use 215 different (sub)types of Aircrafts

The Commission today welcomed the Colombian national regulator's (the National Commission for Television CNTV) selection the European Digital Video Broadcasting standard (DVB-T) for the country's digital terrestrial TV.

On the 5th september it has been presented the main findings of IEA Review of the EU's Energy Policy. This is the first time that the IEA has made an in-depth analysis of European Energy Policy. The Review strongly endorses the broad outlines of the Commission's energy proposals tabled during the last year. 

It has been published the Communication of 5th September 2008 from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions related to the ex-post evaluation of the ‘Information Society Technologies (IST)’ Thematic Priority in the Sixth Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration (RTD) (COM(2008) 533 final).

The EC has published the report from the Commission on the application of Council Recommendation of 12 July 1999 (1999/519/ec) on the limitation of the exposure of the general public to electromagnetic fields (0 hz to 300 ghz) COM(2008) 532 final - 1.9.2008 based on the recommendations of the Scientific Committee for Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR).

The Official Journal of the European Union, OJEU, published on September 5th a Council Decision on the existence of an excessive deficit in the United Kingdom. This Decision comes after an overall assessment of the economic situation in the UK, and is based on the excessive deficit procedure (EDP) to ensure that Member States avoid excessive government deficits or that they correct such deficits when they occur.

It has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union the Commission Decision of 14 December 2004 amending Commission Decision 2002/610/EC on the aid scheme which France is planning to implement for the start-up of new short sea shipping services.

The European Parliament has adopted a resolution calling on the Commission to submit proposals prohibiting the cloning of animals for food supply purposes, as well as the  farming of cloned animals or their offspring and the placing on the market or importing of products derived from cloned animals. MEPs refer to the higher mortality problems of cloned animals and the harm that allowing cloning techniques could cause to the image of the European agricultural model which is based on product quality and the respect for stringent animal welfare conditions.

The European Commission launched on September 4th a public consultation in search of the best strategies to boost Europe's leadership in ICT (Information and Communications Technology) research and innovation in the next decade. The public consultation will be opened for contributions  until November 7th 2008.

The European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) have encouraged the European Payments Council (EPC) to move ahead with the launch of the SEPA Direct Debit scheme. Under this scheme, bank customers would be able to arrange direct debits to pay companies with bank accounts in any of the 31 European countries participating in SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area).

MEPs have adopted a series of legislative reports concerning the classification, labelling and packing of substances and mixtures. The first-reading agreement concerns the implementation of the UN level agreed, GHS (Globally Harmonised System) on classification, labelling and packaging of hazardous substances into EU legislation.