European Union News - 2009

The European Commission and the Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities Directorate General has published a tender about efficient activation approaches and identifying elements for regional cooperation in the western Balkans.

The OJ has published on 29th June the Regulation (EC) No 544/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 June 2009 amending Regulation (EC) No 717/2007 on roaming on public mobile telephone networks within the Community and Directive 2002/21/EC on a common regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services.

The European Commission approved, under EC Treaty state aid rules, an emergency recapitalisation worth €4 billion that the Irish authorities intend to grant to Anglo Irish Bank.

The European Commission through DG Enterprise and Industry has launched a public tender to study the structure of retail and production along the food supply chain in the EU; the impact of private labels (retailers' own brand products) on the competitiveness of the SMEs.

Speakers of Bulgarian and Greek will soon be able to have .eu websites in their own languages. The European Commission has adopted new EU rules to make it possible for internet users and businesses to register domain names under .eu using the characters of all the 23 official languages of the European Union, now including Cyrillic and Greek scripts. This means that later this year .eu will also be available in the alphabets used by Bulgarians, Greeks and Cypriots and special characters used in other languages.

The aim of the European Action on Drugs is to seek a European response to a growing problem which is no respecter of borders and to the potentially devastating economic and social consequences of drug abuse, particularly among the youth.

The Commission has taken firm action today against 25 Member States who prevent European consumers benefiting from the advantages of a competitive and open Energy Market by not complying with EU legislation. All the member states, except Cyprus and Malta, will be receiving letters of formal notice for not complying with applicable gas and electricity regulations. The Commission has also sent letters of formal notice to Greece, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Lithuania for maintaining a system of regulated prices in violation of the EU directives on electricity and gas.

The adoption of the Nuclear Safety Directive is a major step for achieving a common legal framework and a strong safety culture in Europe. The EU has thus become the first major regional nuclear actor to provide binding legal force to the main international nuclear safety standards, namely the Safety Fundamentals established by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the obligations resulting from the Convention on Nuclear Safety . The Directive also reinforces the independence and resources of the national competent regulatory authorities.

 The European Commission has decided to refer Austria, Ireland Italy and Spain to the European Court of Justice over non-implementation into national law of the Statutory Audit Directive. The Commission has also decided to send formal requests to Belgium, Ireland, Greece, Luxembourg, Poland and Portugal as they have failed to fully implement into their national laws the latest Directive in the field of accounting within the prescribed deadline. These formal requests take the form of "reasoned opinions", the second stage of the infringement procedure laid down in Article 226 of the EC Treaty. If there is no satisfactory reply within two months, the Commission may refer the matter to the European Court of Justice.

A new specially dedicated page has been launched within CORDIS website in order to gather all information, events and highlights focused on security research.

Following the request of the Council and the European Parliament, the Commission adopted on June 24th 2009 a legislative package proposing the setting up of an Agency for the long‑term operational management of the Schengen Information System (SIS II), Visa Information System (VIS), EURODAC and other large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice.

EU Ministers of Agriculture and Fisheries meeting in Luxembourg between June 22nd and 23rd adopted conclusions on areas with natural handicaps, on the quality of agricultural products and on sustainable aquaculture. Council also reached political agreement on a proposed regulation on the welfare of animals at the time of slaughter or killing, and had a policy debate on the reform of the fisheries control policy.