European Union News - April 2012

The unemployment rate increased in the euro area and in the EU in February 2012 compared with January 2012. In particular, the EU unemployment rate was 10,2% and the euro area seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 10.8%. The lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany, and the highest in Spain and Greece.

Eurostat published its figures which show that on January 2011, 41% of the population of the EU lived in urban regions, 35% in intermediate regions and 23% in rural regions. In addition, in the EU in 2010, the population of urban regions grew by 5.2 per 1000 inhabitants and intermediate regions by 2.2‰, while rural regions decreased by 0.8‰.

The European Commission launched a public consultation with the aim at gathering views with regard to the priority objectives that the EU has to follow the EU until 2020 on the environmental action policy.

According to the Danish Minister for Economic Affairs and the Interior, Margrethe Vestager, who hosted the latest meeting held by the ECOFIN, most of Member States agreed that banks must pay a fair share of the bill of the crisis, but there are many ways of taxing the banks. Some countries therefore support a financial transaction tax, others don’t and would rather explore alternatives. In addition, ministers also held a discussion on the EU multiannual budgetary framework.