European Union News

The European Commission has published a report which highlights the overall positive role that mobile workers from Bulgaria and Romania have played in receiving countries' economies. According to the report, there has been no significant impact on unemployment or wages of local workers in receiving countries.

New populations of breast stem cells that guarantee the creation, expansion and maintenance of the diverse cell lineages of the mammary gland during pregnancy and throughout life have been identified by European scientists. According to the researchers, this discovery opens new avenues to uncover the cells at the origin of the different subtypes of breast cancers.

The European Commission approved a Communication which highlights where the main double taxation problems lie within the EU, and outlines concrete measures that the Commission will take to address them. The objectives is remove one of the biggest tax obstacles to the Internal Market according to the Taxation Commissioner, Mr. Šemeta.

The Culture and Education Committee approved a draft resolution in which suggests to initiate strict, even penal, measures, against doping, match-fixing and violence in sports stadia. The text on the European dimension of sport stresses the urgent need to protect the integrity of all sports matches, and says that doping, match-fixing, illegal betting, money laundering in connection with professional sport and violence in stadia should be made criminal offences.

The European Court of Auditors published its 2010 Annual Report in which it confirms that the EU accounts reliable. However payments were still affected by material error. Cohesion, energy and transport was the most error-prone EU area of EU expenditure, with an estimated error rate of 7.7%.

The latest annual report on transport emissions from the European Environment Agency (EEA) highlights that the reduction of emissions of many pollutants from transport in 2009 may only be a temporary effect of the economic downturn.

The European Commission published a report which highlights that although protection during transport improved more needs to be done. The report stresses a series of problems hampering further improvement of such conditions.

ENISA, the European Network and Information Security Agency, presented a report in which published 18 protective recommendations. The report identifies the top emerging risks regarding children cyber activities and makes 18 non-technical recommendations for their mitigation.

European Commission presented its Autumn forecast 2011-13 in which it clearly stated that EU growth is at a standstill. In addition, GDP in the EU is now projected to stagnate until well into 2012. In fact, the figures shows that annual GDP growth in 2012 is forecast at 0.6% in the EU and 0.5% in the euro area. Growth in 2013 is expected to remain lacklustre at 1.5% in the EU and 1.3% in the euro area.

The time for sending applications to the next year's European Charlemagne Youth Prize is open. The Prize, which is jointly organised by the European Parliament and the International Charlemagne Prize Foundation in Aachen, is awarded to young people who have been involved in projects to promote understanding between people from different European countries.

The new EU Customs and Taxation programme proposed by the European Commission, FISCUS programme, has as main goal to protect the financial interests of the EU and Member States. It counts with a budget of €777.6 million and it is proposed to run for 7 years from January 2014.

Researchers at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom have identified a specific protein generated by the brain in response to stress. Their findings could help boost understanding of stress-related psychiatric diseases in people, particularly in knowing how the human brain deals with stress and how it eases its impact.