European Union News

An inverted triangle will shortly appear on the inside leaflet of certain medicinal products on the EU market. According to the European Commission, this symbol will allow patients and health care professionals to easily identify medicinal products that are undergoing additional monitoring, and its accompanying text will encourage them to report unexpected adverse reactions through national reporting systems.

The European Commission published a Green Paper in which invites the stakeholders to contribute with their views on whether, and how, existing legislation should be adapted to deal with plastic waste and promote re-use, recycling and recovery of plastic waste over landfilling.

The results of a public consultation launched by the European Commission shows that SMEs see the biggest difficulties and costs as a consequence of the rules regarding the REACH chemical legislation, value added tax, product safety, recognition of professional qualifications, data protection, waste legislation, labour market related legislation, recording equipment for road transport, public procurement and the modernised customs code. While recognising the overall necessity of having European-wide rules in these areas, the Commission stressed that it will now thoroughly address these concerns via the new Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme (REFIT) launched in December 2012.

The EU and INTERPOL, in partnership with the Libyan authorities, are launching a key stage of a €2.2 million project funded by the EU's Instrument for Stability aimed at making tangible improvements to Libyan border security and helping security sector reform. In particular, they will inaugurate on 7 March the establishment of a real-time passport control capacity at Tripoli International Airport.

The European Commission has imposed a €561 million fine on Microsoft for failing to comply with its commitments to offer users a browser choice screen enabling them to easily choose their preferred web browser. In particular, Microsoft failed to roll out the browser choice screen with its Windows 7 Service Pack 1 from May 2011 until July 2012, according to the Commission.

The European Commission will allocate €7 million as emergency aid to the victims of Typhoon Bopha in Philippines. With this aid, the total humanitarian funding is up to €10 million since the region was struck by Typhoon Bopha force in December.

The European Commission confirmed that on 5 March, Latvia formally asked the Commission to deliver an extraordinary convergence report with the aim of joining the euro from 1st January 2014. The report will assess if the country has achieved the five convergence criteria as defined in the Maastricht Treaty for joining the euro.

According to a Flash Eurobarometer survey published by the European Commission, EU holiday makers, as many as 88% spent their vacations somewhere within the EU, either in their own country or in another Member State. Spain (12%), Italy (8%) and France (7%) are still the most preferred destinations.

Leaders of the African Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Inter-American Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank Group called in a statement for more coordination on global development. They recognised that issues of inclusive growth, environmental sustainability, and long term financing are global in nature. Therefore, they committed to harnessing their own institutions analytical and convening power to identify solutions to such pressing global issues.

The political agreement reached between the Council and the European Parliament on the so-called "CRD 4" package was endorsed by the Council. The package contains two proposals set out to amend and replace existing capital requirement directives: a regulation establishing prudential requirements that institutions need to respect, and a directive governing access to deposit-taking activities.

According to Eurostat, 503 kg of municipal waste was generated per person in 2011, while 486 kg of municipal waste was treated per person. Denmark, with 718 kg per person, had the highest amount of waste generated in 2011, while values of below 400 kg per person were recorded in Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Estonia.

According to Eurostat, the figures for 2011 show that both women and men could expect at birth to live 62 years in a healthy condition and nine additional years at the age of 65 in the EU. In Sweden and Malta could expect to live more than 70 years in good health.