European Union News

The European Parliament has debated during its Plenary session held in Strasbourg on 9 March about the situation of the accession negotiations with Turkey. MEPs regret that this process is progressing so slowly mainly due to the limited improvements made by Turkey in the defence of human rights and the implementation of reforms.

The European Parliament adopted at the Plenary Session held in Strasbourg on 8 March 2011 a resolution which asks the Commission to crease discriminating EU agricultural sector when negotiating international trade agreements. MEPs highlight that the European Commission must stop making concessions which can adversely affect European farmers, and warn of the effects of the trade talks with Mercosur and criticise the recent agreement with Morocco.

The European Commission adopted on 8 March a Plan aimed to improve energy efficiency in the European Union by the implementation of concrete measures. These measures would create important benefits for households, businesses as well as public authorities, and could represent annual savings of 1.000 euro per household.

The resolution on innovative financing adopted by the European Parliament at the Plenary Session held on on 8 March 8 2011 supports that the European Union should promote the introduction of a tax on financial transactions, as this type of tax would improve the functioning of markets and reduce speculation. At the same Session, the Parliament also voted on a second resolution on tax and development aimed to reduce tax evasion and fraud to increase efficiency in aid delivered to developing countries.

According to an Opinion issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union on 8 March 2011, the draft agreement for the creation of a European and Community Patent Court would not be compatible with European Union law. This Opinion follows the request made by the Council to the Court of Justice to obtain its opinion on the compatibility of the envisaged agreement with European Union law.

According to the last data released by the Eurostat, EU member States generated 513 kg of municipal waste per person in 2009. However, this amount of waste generated per person varied from 316 kg in the Czech Republic and Poland to 833 kg in Denmark. Figures also varied in terms of the treatment granted, although on average 504 kg of municipal waste per person was treated with any of the methods available.

To celebrate the 100th International Women Day, the European Union wanted to take the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women throughout all these years around the world both economically, socially, politically and in the cultural fields. Under the theme "Equal access to education, training and science and technology", this day highlights the importance of equal access to training and education in order to really guarantee equal opportunities between women and men.

The European Commission has closed an antitrust investigation concerning the digitisation of European cinemas after several major U.S. Hollywood film studios revised contract provisions relating to the financing and installation of digital projection equipment in cinemas. The Commission had concerns that the original provisions might hinder small film distributors from getting access to digital cinemas which could be in breach of the EU rules that prohibit restrictive business practices. The revised provisions facilitate the release of independent and art house films in the new state-of-the-art cinemas.

The European Commission has set the historical aviation emissions at 219,476,343 tonnes of CO2, for the purposes of the calculation of the total number of aviation allowances to be available from 2012. This Commission's Decision represents a decisive step for the inclusion of aviation in the EU's emissions trading system (EU ETS) from 1 January 2012.

Ministers meeting in Brussels on 7 March 2011 for the celebration of the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council, issued their conclusions on the European Platform against Poverty and Social Exclusion: A European framework for social and territorial cohesion. In their conclusions, ministers stressed the fact that preventing and alleviating poverty and social exclusion will require a coordinated action of all relevant efforts and instruments at EU and national levels.

During his visit to the European Cultural Capital for year 2011, Finnish city Turku, the President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, took the opportunity to deny informations which suggested that the European Commission had the intention to reduce the financial support granted to European film industry through the MEDIA Programme.

The Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) measurement standard has been chosen by Government organisations in three continents as the common standard for measuring the energy efficiency of data centres. This will allow data centre operators to measure, calculate, improve and communicate the energy efficiencies of their data centres worldwide. Although global taskforce has reached agreement on measurement protocols for PUE, the discussion still continues over additional energy efficiency metrics.