European Union News

€35 million is the total amount announced by the European Commission for helping the people from the most vulnerable and poorest communities in Central America, Central Asia and the Caucasus region, South-East Asia and Southern Africa will benefit from the European Commission's Disaster-Preparedness Programme (DIPECHO). Overall, the DIPECHO programme seeks to reduce the impact of natural disasters.

The Fisheries Committee at the European Parliament highlighted during a vote celebrated in 11 of July that failing to manage EU stocks sustainably means that 75% of them are overfished, costing the EU about €1.8 billion a year. MEPs therefore stresses that common fisheries policy reform must make fisheries sustainable, to ensure the survival of fishing fleets and coastal areas. Moreover, a deal with the Council ban EU imports of fish from overfished stocks and related species was unanimously endorsed by the Fisheries Committee.

The European Commission proposed a new Directive in order to create a more harmonised framework for prosecuting and punishing crimes involving the EU budget so that criminals no longer exploit differences between national legal systems. According to Viviane Reding, the EU's Justice Commissioner, currently some Member States punish one crime with imprisonment whilst others take no action.

The European Commission launched a proposal to implement targets that will further considerably reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from new cars and light commercial vehicles (vans). The Commission highlighted that the mandatory targets for 2020 are already envisaged in existing legislation but require implementation.

The European Commission launched a proposal which would imply that collecting societies willing to engage in the multi-territorial licensing of their repertoire have to comply with European standards. According to the Commission, some collecting societies struggle to adapt to the requirements of the management of rights for online use of musical works, in particular in a cross-border context. The main objective of the proposal is to make easier music licensing in the Single Market.

The European Commission announced new support for family planning in developing countries. The new €23 million package will form part of the commitment reached at a family planning summit organised by the UK Government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The European Commission pledge contributes to the summit's goal of providing family planning services to an additional 120 million women by 2020 in the poorest developing countries.

The 2012-2013 pilot phase of the EU project bonds initiative which is aimed at mobilising up to €4.5 billion in private sector for financing key strategic infrastructure projects has been launched by adopting for the the Council a regulation. In addition, the Council has given to Spain an extra year to correct its deficit, i.e. until 2014.

According to a report from the European Commission, children with special educational needs and disabled adults are still getting a raw deal, despite commitments by Member States to promote inclusive education. The report also calls on Member States to provide adequately financed inclusive education policies.

The European Commission announced the launching of a Smart Cities and Communities European Innovation Partnership (SCC) with the aim at boosting the development of smart technologies in cities. According to the Commission, smart urban technologies can make a major contribution to tackling many urban challenges.

China and the UE agreed that in a changing world they share broad common interests and are increasingly interdependent. This is one of the common conclusions drawn from the 3rd EU-China High-level Strategic Dialogue held in Beijing on 9-10 July 2012.

The European Commission confirmed that a new EGNOS (the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service) transponder was launched on 10 of July on board an SES satellite from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The aim of the new transponder is to replace the one currently aboard an Inmarsat satellite. It will continue to provide higher accuracy positioning signals to both citizens and professionals using an EGNOS-enabled GPS receiver.

Finance Ministers of the euro area have reached a political understanding on the draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) underlying the financial assistance for the recapitalisation of financial institutions for Spain, to be provided via the EFSF until the ESM becomes available. In addition, they also supports the Commission's recommendation to extend the deadline for the correction of the excessive deficit in Spain by one year to 2014.