European Union News

The European Parliament approved a resolution in plenary session which calls on a dedicated strategy to tackle the growing diabetes problem. According to MEPs, the strategy is essential to improve research cooperation and focus on prevention and early diagnosis. In addition, the resolution highlights that many EU countries do not have a national diabetes programme. In most Member States, diabetes accounts for over 10% of healthcare expenditure.

Compared with the previous quarter, Eurostat estimations foresee that the number of persons employed decreased by 0.2% in the euro area and by 0.1% in the EU27 in the fourth quarter of 2011. In the third quarter of 2011, employment decreased by 0.2% in both zones. In addition, hourly labour costs in the euro area rose by 2.8% in the year up to the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with 2.6% for the previous quarter.

MEPs approved the deal with USA and Canada that puts an end to the 20-year hormone beef trade war. With the new deal, the EU to keep its ban on imports of hormone-treated beef, in return for increasing its quota for imports of high-quality beef from the US and Canada. The increase in EU import quotas will take effect from August 2012.

The European Parliament adopted the report on budgetary guidelines that highlights that EU Member States must not capped "artificially" the budget payments for 2013. In addition, the report underlines that next year's EU budget should focus on youth employment and small and medium- sized enterprises (SMEs).

The public consultation launched by the European Commission is intended to gather views on future film support rules. In particular, the consultation questions on the state aid criteria it proposes to use to assess Member States' film support schemes in future. The contributions can be made by 14 of June, and they will be included in a final Communication which is due to be adopted in the second half of 2012.

The European Commission has presented for the next programming period the "Common Strategic Framework" (CSF) proposal, which is intended to enable a far better combining of various funds to maximise the impact of EU investments. The CSF will be adopted in final form only once the legislative package on Cohesion Policy Funds is formally adopted by the Council and the European Parliament.

The European Union, together with the US and Japan, launched a second challenge of China's export restrictions on raw materials including 17 rare earths. China imposes a set of export restrictions, including export quotas, export duties and additional requirements on raw materials that the EU considers are in violation of general WTO rules.

The European Parliament adopted two reports that reiterates its call for new laws introducing quotas to boost female representation in corporate boards, and supports binding measures and sanctions at national and EU level to ensure gender parity in political decision making, including electoral lists and top EU positions.

The RegioStars awards application process for the year 2013 is now open. These awards are aimed at identifying good practices in regional development and to highlight original and innovative projects which could be attractive and inspiring to other regions. The candidatures can be sent no later than the 20 of April 2012.

EU Finance Ministers decided at the Council meeting held on 13 of March to suspend €495,2 million in scheduled commitments for Hungary and they adopted a recommendation under the EU's excessive deficit procedure for this country. In addition, the Council adopted conclusions on the Commission's alert mechanism report for the early detection of macroeconomic imbalances, and discussed the proposed Directive aimed at establishing an EU-wide financial transaction tax.

The European Parliament approved the new rules to easier the cross-border inheritances, thus avoiding costly legal disputes and cutting red tape for heirs. In addition, the new rules will create a European Certificate of Succession that would not be mandatory. These new rules will apply in the EU except in Denmark, UK and Ireland if the Council gives its final approval.

Eurostat has published its figures for the regional GDP per capital in 2009. According to these figures, twenty two regions had a GDP per capita below 50% of the average and seventeen regions, above 150%, ranging from the 27% of the EU average in the region of Severozapaden in Bulgaria, to 332% of the average in Inner London in the United Kingdom.