European Union News

The European Commission has chaired a regular audioconference of the EU Health Security Committee and the national contact points for communicable disease network on influenza A (H1N1)v. The items on the agenda were vaccination issues and broader public health measures for influenza A (H1N1)v. EU Member States and relevant Commission services and EU scientific agencies participated in the meeting.

As part of the Intercultural Cities programme, EUROCITIES coordinated a one-year programme whose results have been gathered in a document entitled "Intercultural cities - A journey through 23 European cities". This document presents concrete policies, actions and events implemented by cities to foster intercultural dialogue.

The European Commission has launched a pilot project which aims to study air quality in schools from both the EU and candidate countries and Central and Eastern Europe. The study will develop guidelines to cover different situations in order to create healthy school environments.

The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS)has just released the 'Forest Fires in Europe 2008' report which shows the impact of forest fires in Europe for 2008. This report manifests that 180 000 hectares of land in the EU burnt in 2008, compared to a 200 000 in August 2009.

The European Commission is organising information days on the upcoming calls for proposals under the Transport Theme of the Seventh Framework Programme on 28 and 29 September in Brussels, Belgium. The latest call for proposals under the Transport Theme were published in July, and they are related to air transport, trans-European transport and sustainable surface transport.

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) is supporting, for the first time, the Healthy Workplaces Film Award for the best documentary on work-related topics. The award is endowed with € 8,000 and is presented at the 52nd International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film (DOK Leipzig).

The European Commission has selected 50 Masters Courses and 13 Joint Doctorates to be added to the courses available under the EU's Erasmus Mundus programme for stronger European co-operation and international ties in higher education. The new courses involve 296 universities from Europe and 70 partner universities from a range of countries around the world.

The European Union says that the environment is seriously damaged by the hundreds of merchant ships thet are dismantled each year, leaving out large quantities of hazardous waste such as asbestos, PCB and oil sludges. Moreover, in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, where the majority of the dismantling industry is set, working conditions are so poor that each year hundreds of workers suffer serious accidents. Nearly a quarter of the ships dismantled come from Europe.

The European Commission and some leading International Financial Institutions (IFIs) – World Bank, EIB, IMF and EBRD reached on July 31st 2009 an understanding with the Government of Ukraine on concrete measures to reform the Ukrainian energy market and Naftogaz, the state-owned energy company. The agreement should provide the stability needed to significantly reduce the risk of a further gas crisis between Ukraine and Russia and therefore provide the security of supply that Member States and our consumers expect.

Brussels has decided to extend the deadline for the applications for the call for proposals 2009 for financial support to European consumer organisations until September 25th.

The European Commission has approved under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of mobile electronics and transportation systems manufacturer Delphi Corporation by the global investment company Platinum Equity LLC. After calling for observations comming from interested parties, Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition within the European Economic Area (EEA) or a substantial part of it.

Eurofound has issued a report which looks at working time agreements set by collective bargaining. It has found that the average paid annual leave entitlement for workers in Europe was 25.2 days across the EU in 2008; however, some countries had up to three weeks’ more holidays than others.