European Union News

European heads of state and government had a working dinner in Brussels on 19 November to appoint the new EU's key posts: High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and President of the European Council.

EU ministers have committed to developing smarter online public services for citizens and businesses by 2015. The Commission has welcomed this step forward in making eGovernment more accessible, interactive and customised. At the fifth Ministerial eGovernment Conference in Malmö (Sweden), EU ministers outlined a joint vision and policy priorities on how this should be delivered. eGovernment is a key step towards boosting Europe's competitiveness, benefiting from time and cost savings for citizens and businesses across Europe.

The European Commission will tonight present awards to European companies and public authorities for outstanding achievements in environmental management. The annual European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) Awards celebrate and promote best practice in managing the environment. The award ceremony will take place at the National Museum of Sweden in Stockholm

The European Commission’s Directorate General for Enlargement has announced the European Young Journalist Award. The competition will reward Europe‘s best young journalists, focusing on EU Enlargement, for the third year running.

All buildings built after 31 December 2020 must have high energy-saving standards and be powered to a large extent by renewable energy. Public authorities will lead the way two years earlier and part of the funding for these changes will come from the EU. These are among the key points of a deal reached  between Parliament and Council negotiators.

With more than 11 million new fixed lines laid in a year, the take up of broadband internet continues to grow in Europe. According to a report published today by the European Commission, 24% of the EU population had a broadband access line subscription in July 2009, up from 21.6% in July 2008, and connections are increasingly faster. The report also shows that mobile broadband is gaining momentum in Europe, with a 54% increase since January and now at a penetration rate of 4.2% per 100 citizens.

The Official Journal of the European Union includes the publication of a call for proposals to co-finance actions of mobility for experienced researchers at different stages of their careers.

The Commission has welcomed the conclusions of the General Affairs and External Relations Council of 16/17 November, which acknowledge the progress achieved in the field of the Integrated Maritime Policy over the past two years and endorse the integrated approach to maritime affairs. In its conclusions, the Council referred both to last month's IMP progress report submitted by the Commission and to the recent Communication on the integration of maritime surveillance.

The European Commission has created an information network for exchange of data accessible from the Internet, allowing inter-administrative cooperation in the internal market, by allowing direct communication electronically.  It will be through an r ed European authorities and the development of an electronic multilingual information exchange.

Since June 2008, when initial checks took place, 301 websites were investigated by national enforcement authorities for serious breaches of EU consumer law. 70% of the 301 cases investigated, have now been resolved. 52% (159 websites) have been corrected and 17% (54 websites) have closed.

At the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Sharm El Sheikh (Egypt), the European Commission today has welcomed a landmark step towards a truly global (and local) internet: the announcement that "Internationalised Domain Names" will be introduced at the top level. Until now, internet domain names were either fully or partly in the Latin "a to z" alphabet. ICANN has announced that a fast track process would be launched today to open up country code top level domains (like ".eu" of europa.eu) to non Latin characters.

Worldwide corporate R&D investment increased by 6.9% in 2008, in spite of the economic crisis, according to the 2009 "EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard" published today. With an 8.1% increase, the R&D investment growth of EU companies', defined as companies having headquarters within the EU, is significantly higher than US ones for the second year, at 5.7%, and Japanese ones, at 4.4%.