European Union News

A team of EU-funded scientists from Spain and France has developed a new method of magnetic data writing. This study proposes to eliminates the need for cumbersome magnetic fields and provides extremely simple and reversible writing of memory elements, by injecting an electric current parallel to the plane of a magnetic bit. The researchers team outline how their method could help tackle problems for physicists and engineers as well as meet changing market requirements.

The Joint Research Center through its Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen (IPSC) developed a software package to improve its oil pollution detection system. This software will supplied the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) in order to help Member States authorities to improve their response and prevention activities to pollution from ships.

The TAKE CARE ("Strategies towards responsible alcohol consumption for adolescents in Europe") project has reached the practical phase. First pilot trainings with adolescents took already place in the individual countries. The project counts with EU funds.

The European Commission has opened formal anti-trust proceedings to investigate an alleged refusal by several luxury watch manufacturers to supply spare parts to independent repairers. These proceedings does not imply that the Commission has conclusive proof of an infringement. It only means that the Commission will investigate the case as a matter of priority.

The new information service online for those affected by cancer has just been launched. The aim of the site is to create a single place where patients, health care professionals, researchers and policymakers can all come together to interact, discuss, debate and build knowledge.

The European Commission proposed to allocate €370.1 million to Member States for actions in the field of border management and visa policy in 2012 under the External Borders Fund. The funds will support investments in Member States and non-EU countries participating in Schengen, in particular those most affected by increased migratory pressures.

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the EU published two special reports which highlights that the current drought in the Greater Horn of Africa is creating the most serious food insecurity situation in the world.

The Governing Council of the European Central Bank has decided to conduct a liquidity-providing supplementary longer-term refinancing operation (LTRO) with a maturity of approximately six months, given the renewed tensions in some financial markets in the euro area. In addition, the ECB decided that the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged.

Europeans are starting to be more confident about the economy according to the Spring 2011 Eurobarometer. The bi-annual opinion poll organised by the European Union shows that 43% of Europeans think that the crisis’s impact on the job market has already reached its peak, which means one percentage point more than in the previous survey in autumn 2010. Europeans are also increasingly asking for EU action and stronger European cooperation to tackle the crisis and avoid future problems.

A new European study shows how an organism has the capacity to create a biological memory of a variable factor like temperature or nutrition. According to the research team, the environment of an individual can actually affect the biology of physiology of their offspring but there is no change to the genome sequence.

€3 million in EU funding will be earmarked to conduct a study and pilot aimed at fostering collaboration and integration between groups of ports and intermodal door-to-door transport solutions which be mainly invested in ports from Italy, Greece, Slovenia and Spain. The activity is part of TEN-T Priority Project 21 “Motorways of the Sea”.

The President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barrosso and the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy stated in different press releases its confidence on the euro area, specially with regard to the latest developments in the sovereign bond markets of Italy and Spain.