European Union News - 2008

The European Commission has allocated a further €21 million in humanitarian aid for the Horn of Africa: Assistance is being provided to vulnerable populations in Somalia (€13m), Eritrea (€4m) and Ethiopia (€4m). So far in 2008, the Commission has provided nearly €120 million in humanitarian aid, including food aid, to needy people in the Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda).

The European Commission has decides that the majority of rules relating to aviation security will be made available to the public. The publication of the EU list of prohibited articles will make it easier for passengers to know what they can, and cannot, take on board an aircraft, while it increases transparency of EU rules in this domain.

The Commission published a Communication with the summary of the Progress Report to the Council on the implementation of Council Recommendation 2005/835/EC of November 14th 2005 on priority actions to increase cooperation in the field of archives in Europe presented by the European Archives Group (EAG).

The Commission published on August 4th, 2008 a Communication to the Council on a negotiation mandate authorizing the Commission to negotiate an agreement between the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the Department of Energy of the United States of America (USDOE) in the field of nuclear security research and development. This negotiation aims to replace and strengthen the former agreement of 1995 between these two partners.

The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation under the EU Merger Regulation into the planned acquisition of the Dutch manufacturer of basic chemicals DSP by US equity company Arsenal, which controls Velsicol Chemical Corporation. Both Velsicol and DSP are active in the manufacture of benzoic acid and sodium benzoate.

The European Commission invites for applications for the selection of operators of pan-European mobile satellite systems. This calls for applications was published in the Official Journal of te European Union on August 7th, and will be opened until October 7th 2008.

The Committee of the Regions (CoR) published in the Official Journal of the European Union on August 7th, a vacancy notice for filling a post of Director of the Directorate for Administration and Finance (grade AD 14) on the basis of Article 29.2, of the Staff Regulations.

The EU's Community Independent Transaction Log (CITL) and Member State registries will be connected to the UN's International Transaction Log (ITL) before December 2008 at the latest. The link will mean carbon credits issued under the Clean Development Mechanism can be transferred to the registries of EU Member States.

The Council published in August 6th a set of Decisions aiming to step up of cross-border cooperation, particularly in combating terrorism and cross-border crime. These Decisions include legal provisions to strengthen cross-border cooperation, specially in the domain of intelligence and share of information in cases of terrorism. They set out the basic principles and establish the administrative provisions.

On August 6th the Official Journal of the European Union published the opinion of the European Data Protection Supervisor on the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2252/2004 on standards for security features and biometrics in passports and travel documents issued by Member States.

The Official Journal of the European Union published on August 6th the Council Regulation (EC) Nº 732/2008 of July 22nd 2008 applying a scheme of generalised tariff preferences for the period from January 1st 2009 to December 31st 2011, and amending Regulations (EC) Nº 552/97, (EC) Nº 1933/2006 and Commission Regulations (EC) Nº 1100/2006 and (EC) Nº 964/2007.

As part of its overall fight against road accidents and traffic jams, the Commission decided to reserve, across Europe, part of the radio spectrum for smart vehicle communications systems, the so called co-operative systems, which are based on wireless communication technology and allow cars to “talk” to other cars and to the road infrastructure providers.