European Union News - 14 February 2011

This is one of the facts behind the data of a survey released by the European Commission which shows that three over four EU citizens are worried about the cost of using their mobile phone when travelling in the EU. Regarding mobile Internet-related services, not even 20% of Europens do consider that the costs of data-roaming for (Internet are fair. Based on these data, as well as the opinions sent within a recent consultation, the European Commission present the review of current EU roaming rules by June 2011.

The so-called European citizens' initiative, one of the main innovations under the Treaty of Lisbon, will enable citizens to ask the Commission to bring forward legislative proposals if  the supporters of an initiative number at least one million and come from a significant number of member states. On 14 February, the European Council adopted the Regulation to finally put this instrument into place.

The ERC Scientific Council has established a gender equality plan, based on the view that women and men are equally able to perform excellent frontier research. One of the main goals of this plan, which has been concluded by the ERC gender balance working group,  is to increase the number of female top researchers applying for ERC grants, by means of raising awareness.

Following former President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, decision to step down, the European Union in a common statement from President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, and EU High Representative, Catherine Ashton, welcomed his decision and renewed EU compromise towards the people of Egypt. In a first reaction to this historic event, President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek, stated that this is only a beginning of a long road to lasting change: a road of political transition in Egypt in full.