European Union News

The opinion adopted by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) on the proposed package for a reform of the EU rules on data protection welcomes the strengthening of the right to data protection in Europe, but expresses concerns as regards the possibilities for restricting basic principles and rights among other things.

A Communication adopted by the European Commission highlights the positive benefits of environment law, showing how preventing damage to the environment can cost far less than long-term remediation. The main objective of this Communication is to help to intensify the dialogue with governments and all other stakeholders on how can work better together to achieve better implementation of EU law.

The Commission's proposal to set up a European common regulatory framework for the institutions responsible for securities settlement, called Central Securities Depositories (CSDs) is part of the part of its ongoing efforts to create a sounder financial system.

COTER, the Committee of the Regions Commission for Territorial Cohesion Policy, adopted four opinions on the structural funds regulations which aims to add flexibility, simplification, full involvement of regions and cities at shaping and implementing operational programmes and partnership contracts. The opinions will be voted by the CoR at the next CoR plenary session on 3-4 May.

After the disaster the Fukushima accident that happened one year ago in Japan, 14 Member States that operate nuclear power plants decided to take critical look at its nuclear power production. For the time being, there have been done two of the three phases to complete the stress tests. In addition, the Commission is reviewing the EU legal framework in order to ensure and continuously improving nuclear safety.

ECHA, the European Chemicals Agency, has published for the first time, information on articles on the EU market that contains substances of very high concern (SVHCs). The Candidate List is filled by the information provided by companies and the majority of notifications received so far relate to four phthalates that are on due to their toxicity to reproduction.

The European Commission adopted a report on the European Savings Taxation Directive. The report states that the common EU rules on automatic exchange of information has helped to improve the quality and usability of data which Member States transmit to each other. The report also includes recommendations to Member States' tax administrations on how to make the current system even more transparent in the future.

According to the European Commission, an EU and UNICEF project has helped thousands of families, communities and countries to change attitudes and end harmful traditional practices like female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) in Africa. The project helped to raise awareness of the dangers of female genital mutilation/cutting, by encouraging large-scale community discussions and national debate on issues of human rights.

Eurostat has released the second estimates which forecast a decrease of the GDP in the euro area and in the EU for the fourth quarter of 2011. In particular, euro area and EU GDP were down by 0.3% according to the estimations. Compared with the fourth quarter of 2010, seasonally adjusted GDP rose by 0.7% in the euro area and by 0.9% in the EU.

The winning city of the 2011 European Mobility Week Award has been Bologna. The panel of judges found that the Italian city had done the best job in promoting clean alternatives to using cars and involving citizens in activities to support sustainable urban mobility during European Mobility Week 2011.

The “5 Years of Excellent IDEAS” event celebrated last 29 of February marked the achievements achieved by the European Research Council to date. After five years of existence, the ERC has funded more than 2,500 excellent researchers of 53 different nationalities working in some 480 different institutions across Europe. The total funding allocated to date has been €4.2 billion.

The European Commission has suspended plans of the Spanish telecoms regulator (CMT) to postpone until January 2014 the introduction of cheaper mobile termination rates (MTRs), the rates mobile networks charge other networks for delivering voice calls. The delay could result in one more year of unnecessarily high mobile consumer prices in Spain.