European Union News

The European Commission announced that it will provide an additional €30 million to Lebanon to alleviate the impact of the high influx of refugees from Syria. The Commission highlighted that the objective of this special measure is to reinforce the national capacity to deal with the unprecedented number of refugees and provide financial support for the Government’s plan to mitigate the consequences this has for the country.

The European Commission launched a Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs to address up to 900 000 job vacancies expected to exist in Europe in Information and Communication technologies (ICT) by 2015. For this reason, the Commission called on Europe's digital businesses, governments, training and education sectors to join the Coalition.

The Eurogroup welcomed in a statement the achievement of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) milestone for February, agreed between Greece and the Troika. The Eurogroup also welcomed the disbursement by the EFSF of €2.8 billion under the second economic adjustment programme. With regard to Cyprus, with the new government now in place in Cyprus, the Eurogroup is confident that a swift conclusion of the negotiations towards a Memorandum of Understanding can be reached.

The European Commission reported that the 'eTwinning' network, the virtual classroom network for schools, that has encouraged 100,000 schools in 33 European countries to talk to each other via the internet, will be extended from today to schools in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

The European Commission announced the signature of an agreement between the EU and Canada to cooperate more closely to ensure the security of their supply chains. The Agreement builds on the existing customs cooperation agreement with Canada and extends it to include supply chain security and related risk management matters.

The President of the Committee of the Regions (CoR), Ramón Luis Valcárcel Siso, highlighted during a conference held in Dublin that it is extremely important to involve local and regional authorities in delivering the new "Youth Guarantee" scheme to answer to the youth unemployment challenge. He also pointed out that cities and regions are key to creating workforce that meets needs of labour market.

The European Commission proposed a 'smart border package' that consists of a Registered Traveller Programme (RTP) and an Entry/Exit System (EES) that, according to the EU institution, will simplify life for frequent third country travellers at the Schengen external borders and enhance EU border security.

On 3 March, the new EU Timber regulation that prohibits the placing of illegally harvested timber on the European market in an effort to tackle the problem of illegal logging across the world, entered into force.

The trade agreement concluded with Peru in 2012 provisionally applies from 1 of March 2013. According to the European Commission, the Agreement will open up markets for both EU and Peruvian exporters eventually bringing annual savings of more than €500 million. The Commission also stressed that Colombia is expected to join the implementation phase later this year.

According to Eurostat, the euro area unemployment rate was 11.9% in January 2013, up from 11.8% in December 2012. The EU unemployment rate was also higher than in December 2012. Compared with one year ago, the highest increases were registered in Greece (20.8% to 27.0% between November 2011 and November 2012), Cyprus (9.9% to 14.7%), Portugal (14.7% to 17.6%) and Spain (23.6% to 26.2%).

The European Commission reported that the Regulation that lays down travellers' basic rights, and imposes a number of obligations on bus and coach companies and terminal managers concerning their responsibility towards the passengers, just entered into force.

The European Commission proposed a new industrial policy for the European space sector, and to set up a European satellite collision avoidance system. With these measures, it intends to face the increasing competition from emerging industrial actors in countries such as China and India - competition posing a challenge to the further development of the EU's industry.