European Union News

The European Water Initiative celebrates its 10th anniversary at the same time as the international community can celebrate that the Millennium Development Goal on sustainable access to drinking water has been achieved, five years before the deadline of 2015. So, the EU helped more than 32 million people to gain access to improved water supply and 9 million to sanitation facilities.

The European citizens that living and working in another Member State other than their own, around 8 million people of voting age, are still facing obstacles to vote or stand as a candidate in local elections in the EU country in which they live. In addition, only around 10% currently take advantage of this right.

The Annual Accounts approved by the European Central Bank (ECB) for 2011 shows that the Governing Council decided to transfer an amount of €1,166 million to the risk provision, which increased the risk provision to the level of its present ceiling of €6,363 million. As a result of the transfer to the risk provision, the ECB’s net profit for 2011 was €728 million in comparison with the €171 million of 2010.

The Council adopted the compromise text previously agreed with the European Parliament that aligns the EU directive on fruit juices to the international food standards of the Codex Alimentarius. Once the new rules enters into force, the addition of sugars to fruit juices will not longer be authorised. The new directive authorises the food business operators to use a statement on the labels informing the consumers that from a certain date no fruit juices contain added sugars.

Member States agreed its first-reading position on the single European railway area directive. Whilst agreeing with the objective of the recast Commission's proposal, the Council considers a number of its provisions to be too far-reaching or not clear and simple enough. It therefore modified the key parts of the proposal, i. e. the conditions of access by railway undertakings to service facilities, the financing of railway infrastructures and charging for their use, and the functions of the regulatory body supervising the railway market.

The European Council has adopted a new legislation which sets up stronger regulations to combat trafficking of firearms. In addition, the new regulation improves the tracing and control of imports and exports of civilian firearms from and to the EU territory.

The European Commission has reacted swiftly to the explosion that ocurred in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo's capital, and which took the lives of close to 200 people and injured more than 1,500. It joins the operations to bring first aid to the victims and in order to strengthen the response to the emergency, the Commission will release €200,000 to the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC).

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) identified how the rights of women are violated in a way that is often exacerbated by other forms of discrimination. It has released some reports and fact sheets on the occasion of International Women's Day, as well as the launching by the European Institute for Gender Equality of the call for nominations to the "Women Inspiring Europe" Calendar 2013.

The European Commission launched its edition 2012 of the European Enterprise Promotion Awards, which focuses in 2012 edition on SME funding for those entrepreneurs that want to extend their business and enter new markets. The best measure proposed will be awarded during the 2012 SME Assembly.

The Commission has decided to start the second stage under EU infringement proceedings – to send Hungary two reasoned opinions, and two administrative letters, after which the matter may be referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The Commission still has concerns about measures affecting the judiciary and the independence of the country’s data protection supervisor. In addition, the Commission requested in a recommendation a Council recommendation asking Hungary to take steps to correct its excessive deficit in a sustainable and credible manner by 2012.

the European Commission adopted new health warnings for the tobacco packs. The 14 new health warnings were chosen from amongst 24 possible messages following tests among focus groups made up of citizens from all 27 Member States through a Eurobarometer study.

The data published by Eurostat shows that in 2011 there were in total 257 million women and 245 million men in the EU. Additionally, in 2010, there were 62 million women (24.5% of all women) and 54 million men (22.3% of all men) in the EU at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Besides, differences in employment rates between women and men reduce as the education level rises.