European Union News

The European Commission opened the process to find the city that will win the European Green Capital title in 2015. This annual award is intended to spur European cities to become more attractive and healthy places – “fit for life”. This year Vitoria-Gasteiz is the European Green Capital and Nantes will be it in 2013.

According to the estimations from Eurostat, compared with the previous quarter, the number of persons employed decreased by 0.2% in the euro area and remained stable in the EU in the first quarter of 2012. In addition, compared with the same quarter of the previous year, employment fell by 0.5% in the euro area and by 0.1% in the EU in the first quarter of 2012.

Commissioner Antonio Tajani announced a series of new initiatives and planned actions to improve access of SMEs to finance, to boost entrepreneurship and to go international. These actions comprise a guide providing information to improve SMEs access to funding, an European wide training campaign for the Enterprise Europe Network to help SMEs get access to finance, and the launching of a call for proposals to select new IPR Helpdesks in the ASEAN and MERCOSUR countries to help European SMEs to expand their activities to these regions.

Negotiators from the Council and MEPs reached a provisional agreement on the proposed energy efficiency directive. Under the agreement, Member States will set themselves indicative national targets and save energy in specific ways, such as renovating buildings and stipulating the size of energy savings to be delivered by utilities.

Acuamed, the Spanish public corporation “Aguas de las Cuencas Mediterráneas” has been granted with the first instalment (€350 million) of a total loan of up to €500 million by the European Investment Bank (EIB). In particular, the loan will finance investments in the water supply, wastewater treatment and environmental protection in Spain’s five Mediterranean river basins.

The European Parliament approved a report that asks for better defined rules on the labelling and contents of baby milks and food for people with special medical needs. In addition, MEPs are concerned that slimming claims are made on growing numbers of food product labels.

The European Commission presented guidelines aimed at clarifying the existing EU rules on passenger rights for disabled people and people with reduced mobility travelling by air (EC Regulation 1107/2006). Many disabled and reduced mobility air travellers still face problems of unjustified refusals, and other unfair demands when attempting to travel, according to the Commission.

A report approved in plenary session by the European Parliament calls for high-level EU human rights envoy with strong mandate and tasked with raising the EU's human rights profile worldwide. For her part, Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the European Union stressed that she is looking for somebody with an established track record and international experience in human rights, as well a strong understanding of EU policy.

The European Parliament adopted its position on the so-called "two pack". MEPs agreed that next round of economic governance legislation must be geared more towards growth. In addition, they added to the initial Commission's proposal a new chapter on coordinating debt issuance, including the partial pooling of Eurozone debt, and legal protection for countries about to default. With this plenary mandate, Parliament's negotiators will enter into talks with them in order to reach a deal on the legislation with the Council.

Member States are preparing for the roll-out of the smart metering systems, and therefore, the Commission has presented a Recommendation to them on preparations for the roll-out of smart metering systems. The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) welcomed such recommendation but regrets that the Commission has not provided more specific, more comprehensive and practical guidance in the Recommendation itself.

The decision by EU governments to change the legal basis for evaluating the functioning of the Schengen visa-free travel agreement might be brought to the European Court of Justice. MEPs at the Civil Liberties Committee voted last 11 of June to strongly object to Council decision and consider legal action. The Committee also stood by its amendments to two draft laws on the temporary reimposition of internal border controls and the evaluation mechanism.

The Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting ended with the Ministers agreement on a general approach for the two main regulation proposals of the common fisheries policy (CFP) reform "package". This general approach constitutes a political agreement within the Council pending the future first-reading position of the European Parliament.