European Union News

The European Research Council (ERC) announced its funding programme for the next five years, which will benefit hundreds of early-career researchers across Europe. In its fourth year, the estimated total budget for the whole programme has increased by nearly 15% from last year and also the applications submitted, a 42%.

The European Convention of ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability organised the 12-13 September met local authorities committed to sustainability. The main conclusion of the meeting was that without the full involvement of local authorities, EU sustainable development commitments and grassroots promotion of a new EU growth model will not materialise.

The report published by the Commission on the EU public finances sets out how Member States' fiscal policies have evolved in the wake of the current crisis. It also proposes a set of reforms to put prevention and debt reduction at the centre of EU budgetary surveillance.

Parliament approved detailed rules governing the future public regulated service of the Galileo, the European satellite navigation system Galileo which will provide GPS signals for government users such as the police, military or security services in addition to signals for navigation devices for cars and shipping from 2014.

MEPs met at the plenary session adopted the revision of the mandate for FRONTEX, the EU border control agency, giving to the agency the power to own or lease its own assets. and will no longer depend on Member States' commitments. In addition, under the new rules, Frontex missions may be suspended or terminated in the event of a breach of human rights. Once the Council gives its green light to the new regulation, it will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the EU Official Journal.

Two new studies as part of an EU-funded project, the STEP project, have published their findings on the ways to conserve Europe's pollinators and to ensure they continue to deliver pollination services to crops and wildflowers.

After a request made by the European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, the Commission explained that, immediately after the Fukushima nuclear accident, the maximum radiation levels permitted in foodstuffs imported from Japan to the EU were higher than those permitted in Japan itself, but were lowered to the Japanese levels a few weeks later.

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) published a report with the conclusions on the results of touristic projects co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The report shows that all of the projects examined provided positive results in one form or another and furthermore, 98% of projects continuing to be operational at the time of the audit.

The Polish Presidency in the EU Council wants to reach an agreement as soon as possible on cultivation of GMOs. The next round of talks held by the Polish Presidency is to take place as early as on 15 September in Brussels.

The compromise reached in the negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council at second reading has been adopted by the Council. It means that Member States may apply an "external cost charge" on lorries, complementing the already existing infrastructure charge designed to recover the costs of construction, operation, maintenance and development of road infrastructure.

The directive extending the term of protection of the rights of performers and phonogram producers on music recordings within the EU from 50 to 70 years has been adopted by the Council. However, it has been approved with the vote against from the Belgian, Czech, Dutch, Luxembourg, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian and Swedish delegations and the Austrian and Estonian delegations were abstained.

Compared with 3.9% in June, the annual growth rate of the outstanding amount of debt securities issued by euro area residents was 3.8%. For the outstanding amount of quoted shares issued by euro area residents, the annual growth rate was 1.8% in July 2011, compared with 1.6% in June.