European Union News

On September 22nd, the Official Journal of the European Union published the information related to the prior notification of a proposed concentration pursuant  to Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 between the undertakings Deutsche Bank and The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. and Beheer- en Beleggingsmaatschappij Befraco BV.

Google reaffirmed its wish to collaborate with European data protection authorities and announced that it will reduce its retention period to 9 months. But in substance, Google refuses for the moment to submit to the European data protection law.

The European Commission has decided to pursue infringement procedures against 12 Member States for failure to implement certain Internal Market Directives into national law. Under the Treaties, the Commission is responsible for ensuring that EU law is correctly applied, and consequently, it has powers of its own (action for non-compliance) to try to bring the infringement to an end and, where necessary, may refer the case to the European Court of Justice.

European Commission Vice-President Gunter Verheugen awarded twenty localities with the title of “best local intangible heritage destination in Europe” on the occasion of the 7th European Tourism Forum held in Bordeaux (France) on September 18th. EDEN, launched in 2006, promotes the specific characteristics of European destinations and offers particular support to those where a competitive tourism is developed as to ensure social, cultural and environmental sustainability of tourism.

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on the regulatory principles to be applied by EU Member States to Next Generation Access broadband networks (NGA). The objective of a common regulatory framework for NGA is to foster a consistent treatment of operators in the EU and thereby ensure the necessary regulatory predictability to invest. The public consultation will be open until November 14th 2008.

The European Commission decided on September 18th, to refer to the Court of Justice the matter of proceedings against Estonia and the United Kingdom for failing to transpose the European legislation on enhancing port security into national law within the set time limit.

More than 70 representatives of Spanish entities and institutions attended the briefing on the Call 2009-2012 to select Europe Direct information centres. The meeting took place on September 18th at the headquarters of the European Commission Representation in Spain, in Madrid.

On 25-26 September 2008, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) will organise the 1st Baltic Organised Civil Society Forum, which will take place in Riga (Latvia) in the Golden Hall of the Latvian Society. This conference will offer to civil society organisations from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia an opportunity to analyse and exchange best practices with their counterparts from other EU member states.

The Commission adopted on September 11th, the Decision 2008/739/EC, concerning a financial contribution by the Community towards the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) for actions in the area of animal disease information. This support implies a total financial contribution up to a maximum amount of 1 M€ for the period 2008-2012.

The General Affairs and External Relations Council meeting, held in Brussels on September 15th and chaired by the French Minister for Foreign and European Affairs, Bernard Kouchner, led to the decision to send an independent civilian observer mission to Georgia, under the European Security and Defence Policy.

The European Commission has proposed to improve the current food distribution programme for the most deprived persons in the European Union by increasing the budget by two thirds to around 500 M€ from 2009 and extending the range of products which can be provided.

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) informed in the OJEU on September 17th about the publication of Special Report No 5/2008 “The European Union's agencies: Getting results”. The aim of the audit was to consider whether the analysed agencies had introduced the procedures and tools needed to provide reasonable assurance that their activities were performed in such a way as to achieve the results expected.