European Union News - February 2012

From 1 June of 2012, organic products certified in Europe or in the United States may be sold as organic in either region. The new agreement announced by the European Commission implies the creation of a strong foundation from which to promote organic agriculture, benefiting the growing organic industry and supporting jobs and businesses on a global scale.

The European Commission has proposed to help 1,138 redundant construction workers back into employment in Spain, with €1.6m from the European Globalisation adjustment Fund (EGF). The proposal now goes to the European Parliament and the EU's Council of Ministers for their approval.

The plan for the EU presented by the Commission seeks to reverse its relative decline in High-Performance Computing (HPC) use and capabilities. Thus, the EU will double its investment in HPC and become home to computers that can perform 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (i.e. 1018) operations per second before 2020. Half of the investment would be for development and training and for new centres of excellence, creating thousands of jobs.

MEPs adopted the single Euro payments area (SEPA) regulation which lays down common rules and standards for euro credit and direct debit transactions among banks. According to them, thanks to this new regulation cross-border bank transfers should become faster, cheaper and safer for EU citizens.

The Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council meeting discussed on the 14 of February two aspects of the Commission's proposal on the draft regulation on trans-European energy infrastructure: regional groups and regulatory measures. In addition, Ministers also held a debate on the main obstacles to the achievement of the Europe 2020 energy objectives.

The first Alert Mechanism Report published by the Commission on the EU's new rules on economic governance considers that the macroeconomic situation in the following countries needs to be investigated further: Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Hungary, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

The new rules to enable new bluetongue vaccines to be used more efficiently, and thus make farmers' lives easier have been approved by the European Parliament. This decision is aimed to combat several epidemic waves of disease have hit many EU Member States since the early 2000s, causing significant losses of livestock.

The European Research Council (ERC) announced the conclusion of its competition for Proof of Concept funding. In this call, a total of 52 grants have now been awarded. Worth up to €150,000 each, these 'top up' grants are designed to help ERC-funded 'blue sky' research maximise value.

The European Commission has launched a public consultation in order to get stakeholders' views on the application of the 2004 EU Guidelines on state aid to maritime transport. In light of the comments received, the Commission will decide afterwards whether the Guidelines need to be revised. Contributions can be made until 14 May 2012.

The European Commission published its figures for the unemployment in December 2011 which show that the number of unemployed people in the EU stood at 23.8 million, i.e. 1.1 million more than in March 2011, when the declining trend in unemployment was reversed. Moreover, youth unemployment rate did not rise further in December 2011 compared to November; it stands at 22.1%.

The strategy and action plan proposed by the European Commission is addressed to shift the European economy towards greater and more sustainable use of renewable resources. According to the Commission, this plan will help to get renewable biological resources for secure and healthy food and feed, as well as for materials, energy, and other products.

The European Commission approved under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a developer of smartphones and tablets, by Google, the world's largest internet search and search advertising company and developer of Android.