European Union News - 2008

The Headquarters' Agreement between the Government of Spain and the Community Fisheries Control Agency will be signed and the doors of its provisional premises in Vigo will be symbolically opened.

With the objective to facilitate further amendments on the existing legislation on rail interoperability, and given that some amendments have already been done in Directive 2004/50/EC, the Official Journal of the European Union published on July 18th Directive 2008/57/EC on the interoperability of the rail system within the Community.

The Official Journal of the European Union has published last 17th July the agreement of the European Commission in relation to compatibility of aids under Article 87(3) (c) of the EC Treaty given that the measure is in line with the Community Framework for State aid for Research and Development and Innovation.

The Preparatory Commission of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) is engaged in identifying how its verification system could best be strengthened, including through the development of noble gas monitoring capacity and efforts aimed at fully involving States Signatories in the implementation of the verification regime. The Preparatory Commissio should therefore be entrusted with the technical implementation of this Joint Action.

The European Commission has published in the Official Journal of the European Union of 17th July 2008 its agreement regarding State aid granted under Commission Regulation (EC) No 1857/2006 on the application of Articles 87 and 88 of the EC Treaty to State aid to small and medium-sized enterprises active in the production of agricultural products. It has been estimated an anual expenditure of 2,3 million euro.

The European Commission proposed on July 16th an important revision of the EU framework for investment funds, which provides consumers with access to professionally managed investments on affordable terms. The new provisions will increase the efficiency of the current legislative framework in a number of key areas.

The European Commission has adopted on the 16th july 2008 a Communication on a new industrial property rights strategy for Europe. Together with the creation of a Community patent and integrated patent jurisdiction, the Communication outlines a number of actions as the keystone to maintain a high quality industrial property rights system for the EU in the 21st century. It sets out to support inventors in making informed choices on the protection of their industrial property rights and calls for robust enforcement against counterfeiting and piracy. The Communication also aims to ensure that industrial property rights in Europe are of high quality and that they are accessible to all innovators, particularly small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The main objective of the Framework Decision, through an approximation of Member States' rules on criminal law in the area of attacks against information systems, is to improve cooperation between judicial and other competent authorities, including police and other Member States' specialised law enforcement services.

The Official Journal of the European Union of 16 July has published the Council Decision of 15 July 2008 laying down the amount of Community support for rural development for the period from 1 January 2007 to 31 December  2013, its annual breakdown and the minimum amount to be concentrated in regions eligible under the Convergence Objective.

Despite the calls made by the Commission on the industry for self-regulation and voluntary reductions of roaming prices for text messages, those calls have not been answered. The Commission will therefore start working on measures to ensure that consumers benefit from a truly single market for mobile text services.

The European Commission proposed on the 15th July a new legal framework that will make it easier to set up European Research Infrastructures, such as observatories for environmental sciences, data banks in genomics or state of the art large super computers. The proposal was made in response to requests from Member States, who wish to jointly develop world-class research facilities in Europe.

The ministers responsible for European affairs met in Brest on the sidelines of the "Brest 2008" maritime festival on 12 and 13 July to have an informal debate on the three topics proposed by Jean-Pierre Jouyet in the context of the French Presidency of the European Union.