European Union News

Researchers at the JRC's Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning (CRELL) have worked on the development of conceptual and methodological frameworks defining new European benchmark on the employability of young graduates since 2010. Now, it has been adopted by the Council of the European Union on 11 May.

The 2012 Charlemagne Youth Prize was awarded to the "Europe on the Ground", a Greek youth media project. According to the European Parliament, it is an innovative youth media project that sends multicultural teams of over 50 young citizen journalists and amateur photographers to 10 European capitals each year.

The report published by the European Environment Agency (EEA) recommends to seize the opportunity of improving quality of life while adapting to climate change in cities. It also advices to cities to start investing in adaptation measures using ideas and best practice from around the world.

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) package adopted assesses the first year of implementation of the new “more for more” policy with the EU Southern and Eastern neighbourhoods. It also proposes a roadmap for giving further impetus to the implementation of the Eastern Partnership.

Compared with the first quarter of 2011, GDP was 0.0% in the euro area and +0.1% in the EU during the first quarter of 2012, i.e. remained stable. In the fourth quarter of 2011, growth rates were -0.3% in both zones.

The list adopted by the Commission, which is based on sound scientific advice, is a list of health claims on food labelling and in advertising, for example on the role of calcium and bone health or vitamin C and the immune system, have become vital marketing tools to attract consumers' attention.

According to a report published by the European Commission, the population of the EU is projected to reach 517 million in 2060. The report underlines that this issue will have economic consequences, such as for example that the total number of workers is projected to decline by 15.7 million over the forecast horizon to 195.6 million in 2060. In general, the extent and speed of ageing depend on future life expectancy, fertility and migration. Life expectancy at birth is projected to increase according to the report.

The Economic and Financial Affairs Council meeting ended with an agreement on the conclusions on the future of VAT. Among other things, the Council stressed the importance of ensuring that initiatives designed to arrive at a simpler VAT system for businesses do not impose additional burdens on national authorities. It also agreed with the need to examine in further detail the present EU rules on the application of VAT to the public sector.

The European Commission adopted its first 'health check', a biannual overview on the functioning of the Schengen area, which shows that, among other findings, the pressure at the Schengen external borders is focused on a limited number of hot spots, in particular the Eastern Mediterranean route via Turkey to Greece. The report is accompanied by guidelines which seek to ensure a coherent interpretation and implementation of the selected issues.

Siim Kallas, Commission Vice-President responsible for transport, visited Turkey to enhance transport cooperation between the EU and Turkey. According to the Commission, developing EU-Turkey transport cooperation is very important due to its strategic geographical position at the crossroad between Europe and Middle East and Caucasus.

The Agriculture Committee at the European Parliament celebrated a debate in which a majority of MEPs agreed on the need to introduce other measures, such as support for local slaughterhouses and meat processing plants besides cutting transport time to eight hours to animals. The main objective is to reach the maximum welfare of animals in transport, according to MEPs.

Economic and Financial Ministers of the EU reached an agreement on the so-called "CRD 4" package, which amends the EU's rules on capital requirements for banks and investments firms. The negotiations with MEPs will aim for adoption of the package at first reading, if possible by June 2012. For its part, MEPs already stressed that bank capital requirements must be strengthened to make banks more risk-resilient and the risk weighting of loans to small firms must be reduced to facilitate lending to the real economy.