European Union News

The ninth meeting of the dialogue foreseen in UN General Assembly Resolution 64/298, with the facilitation of the EU, between Dr. Tahiri who led the Kosovo delegation and Mr. Stefanovic who led the Serbian delegation, ended with an agreement on Regional Cooperation and with the adoption of a technical protocol on the implementation of the IBM deal.

A consumer market study found that 8 out of 10 mystery shoppers were not able to switch their bank account successfully. These results show that the self regulatory initiative based on common principles established by Banking Industry Committee, which was expected to bring clarity for consumers, is clearly not delivering the desired results.

The Competitiveness Council meeting held on 21 of February debated the plans for a new streamlined EU research and innovation funding programme, the proposed Horizon 2020. In addition to the necessary reduction of administrative burden for companies, Ministers highlighted the advantages of embedding social sciences and humanities into research projects so as to better address the major societal challenges facing Europe.

At the 12th session of the Global Ministerial Environment Forum held in Nairobi (Kenya), Mercedes Bresso, president of the Committee of the Regions, highlighted the need for local and regional authorities to be more involved in environmental and sustainable development policy-making and programme implementation at global level.

The EU-funded RESPONSIFY project will work on developing new biomarker tests that can indicate whether and how a treatment affects an individual patient, and make response prediction much easier. The main focus of the project will be on ascertaining whether certain types of treatment should be administered before or after surgery.

Mercedes Bresso, the President of the Committee of the Regions, asked to the European Commission for the possibility to implement integrated actions for a sustainable urban development. She also stressed the need of more flexibility, simplification and an 'Urban-Lab' in order to achieve such goal.

The European Commission published a new edition of the overview of the main funding opportunities available to European SMEs. The funding is available in different forms such as grants, loans and, in some cases, guarantees. The guide aims to present the European programmes available to SMEs and contains brief information as well as the main web sites for each programme.

The European Commission published its forecast in which it foresees a continuation of the unexpected stalling of the recovery in late 2011 into the first two quarters of 2012. In addition, the inflation forecast for 2012 has been revised slightly upwards compared with the autumn, due to persistently high energy prices and increases in indirect taxes. 

The European Environment Agency (EEA) published a report in which shows that twelve Member States exceeded one or more of the emission limits set by the EU National Emission Ceilings (NEC) Directive, and in some cases, the limits were exceeded by significant amounts.

The European Commission announced the proposal to suspend the 29% of the Hungary's cohesion fund allocations for 2013 for not addressing excessive deficit. Hungary had not taken effective action to bring its deficit to below the target of 3% of GDP by 2011 in a sustainable and credible manner. According to the Commission, this is unprecedented step which follows the repeated warnings to Hungary urging it to step up its efforts to end the country's excessive government deficit.

The European Commission Action team is going to Spain, where unemployment is affecting almost 50% of young people, to develop targeted plans together with national experts to be included in the National Reform Programmes which will be submitted to the European Commission (mid-April) as part of the European Semester of EU economic governance.

The annual Sustainable Energy Europe Awards that reward best-in-class initiatives to promote renewable energy or energy efficiency, is still opened to entries. The Awards Ceremony is one highlight of EU Sustainable Energy Week that will take place in Brussels and across Europe between 18 and 22 June 2012.