European Union News

Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, will present awards to the best young translators in Europe at this ceremony. Twenty-seven students, one from each Member State, will receive a trophy and a diploma for producing the best translation in a translation contest for schools organised by the European Commission.

In European sustainable energy week 2010, new EU energy commissioner presents strategy to reduce Europe’s dependence on fossil fuel. New EU energy commissioner Günther Oettinger has made promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy his top priorities. He will lay down his strategy in a speech to open this year’s EU sustainable energy week.

Regional development projects in EU Member States will get faster and easier access to EU structural funding, thanks to new rules backed by the Regional Development Committee on Thursday. As part of the EU's "anti-crisis" measures, advance payments will be increased for projects that help create jobs in countries worst hit by the downturn.

In order to determine whether changes are needed to make the SE Statute work better, the European Commission has launched a public consultation. With the review of the SE Statute, the Commission is aiming to increase the use of the SE across the European Union.

On 23-24 March, the European Commission will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the European Capitals of Culture with a conference and exhibition in Brussels attended by more than 400 representatives of past, present and future Capitals and many other cultural operators. The conference is aimed at sharing experiences and good practices as well as assessing the impact of the European Capitals of Culture since its launch in 1985.

A recent EU survey found most consumers are unhappy with the bus and train services in their cities, with many also complaining about banking services and their power and gas companies. That is why services have been the focus of an EU conference on consumer policy this week

The European Commission has adopted new rules to make it easier for passengers and crew on ships in the EU's territorial waters to make mobile phone calls or send and receive text messages when they are out of range of land-based mobile phone networks. The new rules harmonise the technical and legal conditions for on-board communication services and pave the way for innovative applications, such as remote monitoring of containers stored on-board.

European Commission has launched the ninth edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard, which shows how crisis has affected not only economy and employment, but also innovation across Europe, despite the efforts to make it a key issue on European recovery.

Experts and skateholders on sustainable recovery will meet in European Economic and Social Committee headquarters to discuss about the current state and future targets of social and economic recovery in Member States.

Up till now, rules on invoicing value-added tax (VAT) have been so complicated that they have hampered the use of electronic invoices in trading across borders. To allow businesses to save expenses and ease administrative burdens, the Ecofin Council on 16 March reached a general agreement on a directive aimed at modernising VAT invoicing requirements

The Commission published in the Official Journal of the European Union the second call for proposals under the Programme of financial assistance to improve the environmental performance of the freight transport system Marco Polo II.

European governments must make a 'generous effort' so that local and regional bodies actively participate in defining policies against the economic crisis. Spain, Belgium and Hungary are working on a 'roadmap' to bring about real European participation by local and regional bodies.