European Union News - 02 December 2010

One of the conclusions of the Transport Council meeting held in Brussels on 2 December regarding road safety, considers that controls and sanctions for breaches of road traffic rules should be enhanced, as they remain one of the most effective means to reduce the number of accidents and victims on the roads. For that reason, the Council has agreed on a text which targets cross-border traffic offences with a critical impact on road safety.

The online platform OpenAIRE (Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe) will provide a network of open repositories  providing free online access to knowledge produced by scientists receiving grants from the Seventh Framework programme (FP7) and European Research Council (ERC). Through this initiative the European Commission aims at bringing the results from EU funded research closer to the public, following some the objectives also promoted by the Digital Agenda for Europe and the Innovation Union initiatives.

According to a report recently published by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) the protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons reveals importante differences between Member states. While in some of them legislation and practice is increasing the protection of LGBT persons, in others their rights are being restricted or neglected.

According to operational data gathered during the deployment of the Rapid Border Intervention Teams (RABIT), Frontex estimates that at the end of November 2010 there has been an overall decrease of 43,7% in the number of irregular migrants intercepted  at the Greek-Turkish land border. These figures show a positive result of the first deployment of RABIT Teams since the creation of Frontex.

The Official Journal of the European Union publishes on 2 December the Commission Decision of 1 December 2010 regarding the financial contribution granted by the European Union for the year 2011 to certain European Union reference laboratories in the feed and food control area. Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish reference laboratories will be supported with this financial contribution.