European Union News

The online platform OpenAIRE (Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe) will provide a network of open repositories  providing free online access to knowledge produced by scientists receiving grants from the Seventh Framework programme (FP7) and European Research Council (ERC). Through this initiative the European Commission aims at bringing the results from EU funded research closer to the public, following some the objectives also promoted by the Digital Agenda for Europe and the Innovation Union initiatives.

According to a report recently published by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) the protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons reveals importante differences between Member states. While in some of them legislation and practice is increasing the protection of LGBT persons, in others their rights are being restricted or neglected.

According to operational data gathered during the deployment of the Rapid Border Intervention Teams (RABIT), Frontex estimates that at the end of November 2010 there has been an overall decrease of 43,7% in the number of irregular migrants intercepted  at the Greek-Turkish land border. These figures show a positive result of the first deployment of RABIT Teams since the creation of Frontex.

The Official Journal of the European Union publishes on 2 December the Commission Decision of 1 December 2010 regarding the financial contribution granted by the European Union for the year 2011 to certain European Union reference laboratories in the feed and food control area. Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish reference laboratories will be supported with this financial contribution.

Representatives from the Council and the European Parliament meeting in Conciliation Committee on 30 November, reached an agreement on a proposal for a regulation on the rights of bus and coach passengers. Compensation for delays or damaged luggage as well as protection of disabled passengers will be key features of this new legislation, which now needs to be endorsed by majority at the Parliament plenary session and by the qualified majority within the Council.

The three winners of the 2nd European Health Journalism Prize were announced during a ceremony held in Brussels on 30 November 2010. This year two Italian journalists, Gianluca Ferraris and Ilaria Molinari, were jointly awarded with the first prize for their article “Stealing Hope” which addresses the issue about “healing clinics”.

On 30 November the first official trialogue meeting took place on the implementation modalities for the citizens’ initiative. Further to this meeting, the trialogue has reached an agreement in principle regarding the instrument introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon which will enable a million citizens to demand the Commission to submit proposals in its areas of competence.

Despite declining numbers of new infections are encouraging, the total number of people living with  the HIV virus continues to rise in the world and it is estimated that almost 33.4 million people are living with this virus. Around 6,800 people are infected every day, of which almost half are young people between 15 and 24. For that reason, in the occasion of the World AIDS Day, the European Commission has insisted in the importance of acting in prevention and early detection of this disease.

Ecological restoration can curb environmental degradation but little is known about how cost effective the approaches are. Enter an EU-funded team of scientists from the UK and Latin America that investigated the cost-effectiveness of renewing a degraded, or even destroyed, ecosystem through human intervention.

Agriculture and Fisheries ministers meeting in Brussels on 29 November held an initial exchange of views on Commission's communication on the future of CAP after 2013. In the agenda, ministers also addressed, among other issues, fishing opportunities for certain deep-sea stocks for 2011 and 2012 as well as the possibility to enable EFSA to receive fees, and were also debriefed on the Farm advisory system.

Seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate rose to 10.1% in October 2010, increasing by 0.1% compared to the same data in September. In the European Union as a whole the rate remained unchanged compared to the previous month and a value slightly lower than those registered in the Euro area reaching 9.6%.

The European Commission has decided to open an antitrust investigation into allegations that Google Inc. has abused a dominant position in online search. The opening of formal proceedings follows complaints by search service providers about unfavourable treatment of their services in Google's unpaid and sponsored search results coupled with an alleged preferential placement of Google's own services.