European Union News

The Committee of the Regions (CoR) issued a number of recommendation aiming to make the rules more flexible and to promote the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC), the EU's legal instrument for territorial cooperation. According to the CoR, the set-up and operational procedures are still unduly complex, although the instrument is now firmly established and has clearly demonstrated its potential.

The European Parliament approved two resolutions which calls on Member States for a deeper economic policy coordination and to act on structural reform recommendations besides to improve transparency. The resolutions which are a reaction to the Commission's annual growth survey and employment guidelines, also call for more effort on growth, employment and poverty.

The European Parliament approved the "Food for the needy" programme that supplies food to the EU's most deprived citizens, for two more years, thanks to a rescue plan previously agreed with the Council. The programme will run until the end of 2013, with a budget of up to €500 million per year.

According to the latest Eurobarometer survey, corruption remains a major problem in the countries of the European Union. In addition the 8% of respondents say that they have been asked or expected to pay a bribe in the past year. The economic costs incurred by corruption in the EU are estimated to amount to around €120 billion per year.

The European Parliament approved in the plenary session a deal with Member States on how best to reallocate radio spectrum freed up by the switch from analogue to digital TV to new uses, such as wireless broadband services. The European Commission welcomed the positive vote to the agreement and stressed that the Programme will allow sufficient spectrum to be made available for wireless applications and services such as high speed 4th generation (4G) wireless broadband.

From 1 June of 2012, organic products certified in Europe or in the United States may be sold as organic in either region. The new agreement announced by the European Commission implies the creation of a strong foundation from which to promote organic agriculture, benefiting the growing organic industry and supporting jobs and businesses on a global scale.

The European Commission has proposed to help 1,138 redundant construction workers back into employment in Spain, with €1.6m from the European Globalisation adjustment Fund (EGF). The proposal now goes to the European Parliament and the EU's Council of Ministers for their approval.

The plan for the EU presented by the Commission seeks to reverse its relative decline in High-Performance Computing (HPC) use and capabilities. Thus, the EU will double its investment in HPC and become home to computers that can perform 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (i.e. 1018) operations per second before 2020. Half of the investment would be for development and training and for new centres of excellence, creating thousands of jobs.

MEPs adopted the single Euro payments area (SEPA) regulation which lays down common rules and standards for euro credit and direct debit transactions among banks. According to them, thanks to this new regulation cross-border bank transfers should become faster, cheaper and safer for EU citizens.

The Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council meeting discussed on the 14 of February two aspects of the Commission's proposal on the draft regulation on trans-European energy infrastructure: regional groups and regulatory measures. In addition, Ministers also held a debate on the main obstacles to the achievement of the Europe 2020 energy objectives.

The first Alert Mechanism Report published by the Commission on the EU's new rules on economic governance considers that the macroeconomic situation in the following countries needs to be investigated further: Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Hungary, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

The new rules to enable new bluetongue vaccines to be used more efficiently, and thus make farmers' lives easier have been approved by the European Parliament. This decision is aimed to combat several epidemic waves of disease have hit many EU Member States since the early 2000s, causing significant losses of livestock.