European Union News

The European Parliament approved a resolution in which calls on the EU to identify and eliminate all obstacles likely to prevent girls and women from doing sports. The Parliament also asks that supporters who are known to be violent or to engage in discriminatory behaviour be banned from all European stadiums. Furthermore, the regulation also asks for regulation the profession of sports agent.

Siim Kallas, the EU Transport Commissioner, stressed in a conference that investments in transport are critical for creating employment and a return to economic growth. In his speech, Kallas focused on the key issue of transport financing and set out four major deliverables for 2012-2013, to get the conditions for transport financing right.

José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, stressed at the European Competition Forum that the European competition policy has a key role in order to combat monopolies and protectionism, especially in the context of the currently economic crisis. He also underlined that Europe's future growth prospects depend on a rules-based Single Market that fosters openness and innovation.

According to a European Court of Auditors’ (ECA) special report, the pre-accession assistance managed by the European Commission has made an important contribution to building up Croatia’s capacity for managing post-accession funding. Even so, ECA also reports that the intended results of some projects still need to be safeguarded.

The European Commission has announced the European journalists awarded for the best articles on health issues. In particular, the top articles were on antimicrobial resistance, the importance of exercise in helping tackle depression, breast cancer, and the harmful effects of smoking.

The 2012 European Police Exchange Programme has been launched by the CEPOL, the European Police College. CEPOL will offer one-to-one exchanges to police officers and scientific and research experts, teaching staff and educational programme developers, and commanders. Exchanges are organised according to 16 topics, which have been identified as important to the safety and security of European citizens.

The Commission intends to revise the EU's Consumption and Production policies and that is why it has launched a public consultation, especially in the context that the economies will need to use natural resources in a far more efficient manner. The public consultation will remain open until 3 April.

The Commission's investigation showed that new competitors would be unlikely to enter the market successfully enough to pose a credible competitive threat to the merged company. Therefore, the proposed merger between Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext, has been prohibited by the Commission. In addition, the Commission has opened a formal investigation to assess whether Samsung Electronics has abusively used certain of its standard essential patent rights to distort competition in European mobile device markets.

Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, and Cai Wu, Minister of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, have officially launched the year. Besides a large number of events and projects hosted by EU Member States and China, the year offers opportunities for Chinese and EU cultural institutions, organisations and other stakeholders to establish and develop structured and sustainable cooperation during 2012 and beyond.

Both, the euro area and the EU unemployment rate remain unchanged in December 2011 compared with November. The euro area unemployment rate was 10.4% and the EU unemployment rate was 9.9%. However compared with December 2010, unemployment rose by 923,000 in the EU and by 751,000 in the euro area.

MEPs at the Environment Committee supports the European Commission's Roadmap, which sets "milestones" including CO2 reduction targets of at least 40% by 2030 and at least 80% by 2050. In addition, they called for an improvement on the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and other policies to help its transition towards an economy less dependent on carbon.

The Joint Research Centre is supporting the Italian authorities in monitoring the movements of the cruise ship that grounded off in Tuscany with an innovative radar system. Data on the ship movements have been of fundamental importance during the search and rescue operations and will remain crucial when the fuel is pumped off the ship's tanks.