European Union News

The belgian capital will host on 27th and 28th May 2010 the first edition of the Forum for Outermost Europe, in the framework of new Lisbon Treaty. The Commissioner for Regional Policy, Johannes Hahn, will inaugurate the event.

On the occasion of International Missing Children's Day, European Commission Vice-Presidents Viviane Reding, responsible for EU Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, and Neelie Kroes, responsible for the Digital Agenda, urged EU Member States to step up their efforts to introduce child alert systems and to make the missing children's hotline 116 000 operational as soon as possible.

The Official Journal of the European Union has published a Call for Proposals to grant subsidies to promote transport policy objectives. The policy priorities have been fixed in the 2010 Work Programme adopted by the European Commission. Main topics selected are road safety and internal market (for inland and maritime navigation). The total budget is EUR 2,250,000.

Consumers, businesses and the EU economy as a whole are denied the full economic benefits of a truly single and competitive EU-wide telecoms market because of inconsistent application of EU telecoms rules, according to the European Commission's annual report on the Single European Electronic Communications Market.

Following the success of the last year, the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission launches its  Second European SME Week, which is designed to promote and support entrepreneurship. Events are being organised to help SMEs and micro-firms share experiences and develop their businesses.

The electric vehicle, the European patent system and national R+D investment will be the key issues that European ministers will discuss in Brussels this Tuesday and Wednesday at the final Competitiveness Council.

After being chosen by their national juries, now Riga and Umeå have been ratified by the Council of the European Union as its European Capitals for 2014 with the publication of the official decision in the OJEU.

A groundbreaking UK-US study may give researchers worldwide the tools they need to contain the spread of malaria, a disease that can have fatal consequences, and it specially has in Sub-Saharan Africa

Ministers from 37 countries - 27 from the European Union and the ten that form the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) - will meet in Madrid on Wednesday to commemorate the thirty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of a formal framework for relations between the two groups.

Two Lithuanian projects, another from Belgium, another from Sweden, from Germany and from France are the winners in the six separate categories of the "RegioStars Awards" 2010. The prize giving ceremony recognises the most innovative projects that have been supported by European cohesion policy. The annual event takes place during a two-day conference in Brussels entitled "Regions for Economic Change – Building Sustainable Growth".

The results of the EU project EPITHERAPY approach to the cause of neurodegenerative diseases, which will encourage the creation of a memory enhancer drug.

The European Commission has called a group of legal experts to study how to improve contract Law in the European Union. The group is formed of 18 experts in European contract law, lawyers and consumer representatives and It will aim to promote cross border trade and strengthen the rights of consumers.