European Union News - 13 September 2012

The European Parliament has approved in plenary session a new regulation which will enable farmers and other groups to protect the authenticity and origin of their products more effectively and to ensure the correct use of protected names. The new rules will also reduce by half the time to obtain an EU quality label.

The European Commission has adopted a Communication describing a set of initiatives aimed at achieving a more competitive European maritime and marine sectors and at ensuring their sustainable growth. Commission's document analyses the potential for growth ans competitiveness which marine and maritime sectors as a whole can make to the European economy through innovative activities such as marine energy or biotechnology.

MEPs called on the European Commission to better address social issues. They also welcomed Commission President Barroso's vision on the need for a stronger EU but commenting that his federation proposals needed more ambition. Furthermore, the main groups called for a strong EU budget to deliver investments and growth.

The European Commission announced the successful pilot scheme with regard to the functioning of the Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-EU. For this reason, the Vice-President Neelie Kroes assured that the EU institutions can now count on a permanent CERT to deal with increasingly sophisticated cyber threats against them.