European Union News

The European Commission called on member states in a Communication to step up their efforts to transpose and implement the existing EU internal energy market rules. Furthermore, the European institution announced that it will work with Member States to empower consumers and to reduce state interventions which distort markets.

The European Commission welcomed a delegation led by Nobel laureates Sir Tim Hunt and Professor Jules Hoffman that have presented an open letter, signed by 44 Nobel laureates and 6 Fields medallists, and 130,000 people from Europe and around the globe, which emphasises the importance of EU funding for research and innovation, and warns against the consequences of budget cuts in these areas.

The European Commission announced the winner of the Enterprise Promotion Awards 2012. According to the Commission, the UK organisation Outset has been awarded for creating a unique approach to supporting start-ups by helping society’s most vulnerable groups to find work through self-employment and enterprise. Cyprus, Sweden, Italy, Portugal and Turkey also received prizes for driving enterprise with new and innovative local solutions.

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) should be a key player in the process of helping to bring citizens closer to the EU project and providing the platform for the institutions to listen and better take into account the views of its citizens, as means to the full implementation of Article 11 of the Lisbon Treaty.

The European Commission announced that on behalf of the EU and its member states it signed the Protocol on the Elimination of the Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products. It was adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) with the EU acting as one of the Parties. The Protocol contains provisions on the control of the supply of tobacco products, and is an important part of a comprehensive tobacco control policy.

The European Commission presented a new plan that has as main objective ensuring that enough good quality water is available to meet the needs of people, the economy and the environment.

The European Commission formally accepted on behalf of the European Union the Nobel Peace prize money which is approximate of €930,000. Moreover, the European institution confirmed that the prize money will be allocated to projects that support children affected by war and conflicts.

The European Commission warned Belize, Cambodia, Fiji, Guinea, Panama, Sri Lanka, Togo and Vanuatu that they risk being identified as countries it considers non-cooperative in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The Commission identified concrete shortcomings, such as lack of dialogue or lack of actions to address deficiencies in monitoring, controlling and surveillance of fisheries, and suggests corrective actions to resolve them.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) launched a report on the role of mobile financial services to address financial exclusion in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. The report underlines that financial services are accessible to only a small part of the region’s population unlike mobile phones which have high penetration rates.

Members of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) called for better access to public procurement and more flexible state aid rules in the November plenary session. One of the opinions adopted highlights that some of member states are reluctant to cooperate and open up the public procurement market to competition, despite the EU efforts to promote e-procurement.

Due to the the rapid build-up of the surplus of emissions allowances, the European Commission presented a formal proposal to revise the auction time profile and delay ("back-load") the auctioning of 900 million allowances in the third phase of the EU ETS starting next year. In addition, it adopted a report on the state of the European carbon market which sets out a range of possible structural measures that can be taken to tackle the surplus.

The new legislation proposed by the European Commission supposes attaining a 40% objective of the under-represented sex in non-executive board-member positions in publicly listed companies, with the exception of small and medium enterprises. The Directive will establish that companies which have a lower share of the under-represented sex among the non-executive directors will be required to make appointments to those positions on the basis of a comparative analysis of the qualifications of each candidate, by applying clear, gender-neutral and unambiguous criteria.