European Union News

MEPs at the Committee on Women's rights and Equal opportunities have approved a resolution in which they ask for introducing quotas to increase women's representation in political, administrative and business bodies and reducing the pay gap between women and men to respond to the current crisis.

The proposal presented by the European Commission sets up that as a general rule the national decisions on pricing and reimbursement of medicines take within 120 days for innovative medicines, and for generic medicinal products within only 30, instead of 180 days today.

Eurostat published its latest figures on unemployment which highlight a slightly increase of the rates in January in comparison with December 2011. The euro area unemployment rate was 10.7% in January 2012, compared with 10.6% in December 2011, and the EU27 unemployment rate was 10.1%, compared with 10.0% in December 2011.

A report highlights that the number of flights in Europe will fall by 1.3% this year compared to 2011. David Marsh, Head of Forecast and Traffic Analysis at Eurocontrol blames of this fall to the weakness of the European economy and the fuel price.

The European Commission, within the Europe 2020 flagship Innovation Union, has presented three new Innovation Partnerships which have as main aim to address weaknesses, bottlenecks and obstacles in the European research and innovation system that prevent or slow down good ideas being developed and brought to market. In particular, new proposals will work on raw materials, agriculture and healthy ageing.

The European Commission has launched a public consultation in order to know how to tackle double taxation. According to the Commission, the aim of the consultation is to gauge the full scale of the problem and see where the main weaknesses lie. The main problem lies to the fact that double non-taxation deprives Member States of significant revenues and creates unfair competition between businesses in the Single Market.

The European Commission is considering ways to tackle the invasive alien species and it is therefore gathering opinions among the interested parts. Currently, there are many cases where animals and plants have been introduced to an environment that is not naturally theirs, such as Canada geese, American bullfrogs, Japanese knotweed, and are now spreading so fast that they become a threat to biological diversity.
 

The resolution adopted at the Transport Committee calls on the need of all-in air fares, airline employees able to help stranded passengers immediately, and proper compensation, when airlines go bust. MEPs agreed that the triple choice of "refunding, rerouting or rebooking" is a basic right in the event of travel disruption and it should be immediately offered to stranded passengers.

The General Affairs Council meeting ended with the agreement of recommending the status of candidate country to Serbia, following its application for EU membership. On the other hand, it also approved, without discussion, strengthened measures against the Belarusian regime. In response to this decision, the Belarusian authorities asked to the EU Head of Delegation and the Polish Ambassador to leave the country.

MEPs at the Industry Committee have adopted the rules which sets out lower roaming price caps for calls and SMS texts. In addition, for the first time, they would also cap retail data roaming chargers. The rules, who are supposed to be applied from June 2012, have still to be voted by the European Parliament as a whole.

The regulation aimed to improve the functioning of the EU milk sector has been adopted by the Council. With the new rules, the milk producers will increase their bargaining power by allowing them to set up producer organisations that on their behalf negotiate collectively contracts for the deliveries of milk. The new measures should be also seen in the context of abolition of the milk quotas regime from 2015.

The European Retail Forum for Sustainability published a report which highlights that companies in the forum are paying more attention to the greening of their supply chains, sustainable distribution systems and the use of renewable energies.