European Union News

A new monitoring report presented by the European Commission confirmed that despite the economic crisis, the EU and its Member States have once again been confirmed as the largest provider of Aid for Trade in the world. In particular, on Trade Related Assistance, the EU had already met their €2 billion target, committed in the 2007's EU Aid for Trade Strategy, both in 2008 and in 2009.

The European Commission announced the publication of the final and biggest ever set of calls for proposals for research under its Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) for the 10 of July. In total, In total, €8.1 billion will support projects and ideas that will boost jobs and growth in the EU. Among other objectives, from this total there will be around €970 million of financing for SMEs under the thematic research priorities.

According to a new Eurobarometer published, the 89% do not disclose personal information online, and 74% agree that the risk of becoming a victim of cybercrime has increased in the past year. Nonetheless, 53% have not changed any of their online passwords during 2011.

MEPs at the Employment and Social Affairs Committee rejected the idea of making the allocation of funds to social projects conditional upon the respect for budget discipline required by the EU stability and growth pact. For them, the European Social Fund (ESF) should account for at least 25% of EU cohesion policy funding in 2014-2020.

The European Commission confirmed that 30 scientists supported by the EU funding were involved in the discovery of the Higgs Boson or so-called 'God Particle'. The sub-atomic particle, which experts believe is the basis for all matter in the Universe, was identified at CERN, the European nuclear research facility in Geneva, Switzerland.

MEPs approved a resolution which highlights that basic banking services should be a legal right for the 10% of EU citizens who currently do not have any, including homeless people, those on very low incomes, students, people with no credit record and expatriate workers. According to the text, the basic payment account must always be cheaper than any alternative offered by a given institution.

The Neighbourhood Investment Facility will get additional funding of €150 million in 2012. The European Commission announced that the extra funding will go towards helping countries in the Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood in areas such as road building, climate change, energy or supporting businesses.

The European Parliament announced that thanks to the MEPs pressure, the Council has decided to accept in full a Commission proposal to reshuffle funds between budget headings so as to liberate the necessary funding of €485 million for research projects. Contracts for EU-funded research programmes in the areas of health, biotechnology and nanotechnology can finally be signed.

The European Commission adopted a Delegated Act which specifies the cases in which sovereign credit default swaps are considered covered, and therefore not banned in accordance with the Short Selling Regulation. In addition it includes rules relating to the reporting of short positions in shares and sovereign debt and the thresholds which can trigger a short term suspension of short selling in illiquid shares and other financial instruments.

MEPs approved a plan that has as main objective to attract private investment in transport, energy and information technology network projects. The scheme, that will be managed by the European Investment Bank (EIB), will allocate €230 million in guarantees to back the private issuance of "project bonds".

In Asia and in Africa, less than half of children are currently registered. The European Commission announced the launching of a EU-UNICEF project to be implemented in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Mozambique, Uganda, Kiribati, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands and that will replace existing registration processes. €6 million will be allocated to the project in total. In a period of three years the gap between rural and urban rates of birth registration is expected to reduce by at least half thanks to the project.

The Council adopted a regulation aimed at increasing transparency in derivatives and reducing risk in the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market. This adoption comes after the Council accepted all amendments voted by the Parliament at first reading on 3 July. This regulation is intended to implement commitments made by G-20 leaders in September 2009.