European Union News

Two major concerns of citizens – health and environment - were the big winners when the European Commission and the European Patent Office (EPO) presented the 2009 European Inventor of the Year awards, in Prague. Honoured were 4 inventions: a drug to combat chronic myelogenous leukaemia, a malaria drug based on an herbal agent, enabling the commercial use of solar energy and a highly efficient heat exchanger.

Ten years after the historical Bologna Declaration that resharped European higher education, another ministerial conference will take place in Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), hosted by the Benelux Ministers in charge of this area. The meeting aims to to take stock of the achievements of the Bologna Process, set a new agenda, and agree priorities for the European Higher Education Area for the next decade up to 2020

Organic food meets fresh design: The European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development is inviting all design and art students from the 27 EU Member States to enter the EU-wide organic logo competition. The competition offers a prize that money just can’t buy: The winning logo will be introduced as the official logo for organic products throughout the European Union in July 2010.

At a time when our personal data is accumulating on the internet and in databases, a Parliamentary report warns against the dangers of 'profiling' of European citizens on the basis of criteria such as ethnicity, religion, gender or age, especially by the police. MEPs warn against the excesses of the system and call on Member States to shed light onto these practices. The report was adopted with 372 votes in favour, 12 against and 17 abstentions.

The Commission has adopted a new EU strategy for youth policy for the coming decade. Entitled "Youth – Investing and Empowering", the new strategy acknowledges the fact that young people are one of the most vulnerable groups in society, especially in the current economic and financial crisis, and in our ageing society, young people are a precious resource. The new strategy is cross-sectoral, with both short and long-term actions, which involve key policy areas that affect Europe's young people, particularly youth education, employment, creativity and entrepreneurship, social inclusion, health and sport, civic participation, and volunteering.

The European Parliament has voted in favor of amending the directive on taxation of savings income, with the objective of eliminating the tax opacity of Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria, and to curb tax havens. In a report adopted by the plenary is proposed that all Member States have, by July 2014 to share information fully tax on savings income.

A new European platform for Roma inclusion has been created to improve coordination of national actions to tackle the exclusion of Europe's biggest ethnic minority. Its first meeting brings together national governments, the EU, other international organisations and civil society and aims to stimulate cooperation and exchange of experience on successful Roma inclusion policies.

The European Commission welcomes the formal adoption of the climate and energy package and legislation to reduce CO2 emissions from new cars and transport fuels. The measures, agreed in December, put Europe firmly on the road towards becoming a low-carbon economy and will increase energy security. The package sets legally binding targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below 1990 levels and to increase the share of renewable energy to 20%, both by 2020. It will also help achieve the EU's objective of improving energy efficiency by 20% within the same timeframe. The package makes Europe the first region in the world to implement such far-reaching, legally binding climate and energy targets.

The European Commission has published a call for projects within the program "People", 2009, within the VII Framework Program for research, technological development and demonstration, by which it will fund partnership initiatives and university-business gateway between the European Union.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published in the Official Journal of the European Union on April 24th 2009, the launch of a selection procedure that aims to draw up a reserve list of external experts to be considered for the membership of a working group of scientific experts to externally review the quality of the scientific outputs of the Authority.

The Commission welcomes the European Parliament's endorsement of a proposal to extend term of copyright protection for performers and record producers from 50 to 70 years. The Commission is also pleased that the Parliament's text has further strengthened the position of performers by introducing a new claim for session players amounting to 20% of record labels' offline and online sales revenue.

In its annual Progress Reports, the European Commission takes stock of the concrete reform achievements made by countries within the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in 2008 and identifies the areas where further efforts are needed. Individual country reports for each country with an ENP Action Plan and a sectoral report accompany the policy paper.