European Union News - February 2012

The Regional Innovation Monitor (RIM), an initiative of the European Commission's Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, has the objective to describe and analyse innovation policy trends across EU regions. RIM provides detailed information on regional innovation policies for 20 EU Member States based on the work of a network of experts.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has concluded in a preliminary report that the number of vectors and the temperature have an impact on the possible spread of the virus in a susceptible animal population. However, there is lack of data on many aspects, such as how likely animals are to become immune. Another preliminary assessment concludes that there is currently no evidence that the virus could cause illness in humans.

Following the discovery of the fraudulent use of non medical grade silicone in breast implants manufactured by the Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP) Company in France, the Commission calls on Member States for immediate action to be taken at national level to ensure full and stringent implementation of the current legislation on medical devices.

The competition organised by the European Environment Agency seeks to award young Europeans born in 1991, 1992 or 1993 which make a video showing their vision of a sustainable future. With this competition, the Agency intends to get young people vision of how we can solve the most pressing environmental problems.

The European Commission is scaling up its humanitarian assistance in order to help out the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa. Combined with at least €150 million of development assistance, the €123.5 million brings the Commission's funding for the Sahel so far this year to almost €275 million. But it's estimated that €700 million are required to cover the next 6 months.

The Communication "A simplification agenda for the 2014-2020 MFF" published by the Commission brings altogether in one single document the proposed 120 changes to simplify the rules governing EU funding for Small and Medium Enterprises, towns and regions, students, scientists and others.

Member States informed about progress achieved in key areas such as the progress on access to credits and simplification initiatives, at the second meeting of the Network of SME Envoys celebrated in Luxembourg and chaired by the EU SME Envoy, Mr Daniel Calleja Crespo.

In order to make easier for foundations to support public benefit causes across the EU, the Commission has presented a proposal for a European Foundation Statute. On this way, it can be created a single European legal form - the ‘European Foundation’ (FE) – which would be fundamentally the same in all Member States and would exist in parallel with domestic foundations.

New EU rules for “organic wine”, which will be published in the Official Journal, have been agreed in the Standing Committee on Organic Farming (SCOF). Thus, the term “organic wine” will be allowed to use by organic wine growers on the labels. In addition, the labels must also show the EU-organic-logo and the code number of their certifier.

Eurostat published the latest figures on the risk of poverty and social exclusion in the EU which show, among other findings, that in 2010 27% of children aged below 18 were affected by at least one of the three forms of poverty or social exclusion. In addition, the figures also show that 16% of the population in the EU were at risk of income poverty in 2010.

The Joint Research Centre published a report which shows that Member States plan to reach an overall share of 20.7% of energy from renewable sources by 2020. Even more, Member States are planning to exceed their own targets and will therefore be able to provide surpluses for other Member States.

MEPs at the Industry Committee want to prolong the European Network and Information Security Agency mandate further than 2013. The reason behind the extension is that ENISA can help the EU, Member States and private stakeholders to develop their capabilities to prevent, detect and respond to network and information security problems and incidents.