European Union News

The EARTH project is the winner of the "Future Internet Award" for developing energy efficiency solutions for wireless communication networks. In particular, the European researchers have optimised the energy use of 4G/LTE (Long-Term Evolution) base stations, which account for the highest energy consumption in the mobile network.

The European Commission published its annual forecast for 2011 which highlights that emissions of greenhouse gases from installations participating in the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) decreased by more than 2% last year. However, it also informed that there is still a growing buffer of unused allowances.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has granted two loan to two Spanish banks for 200 million each with the aim at financing investment projects of small and medium-sized businesses mainly in the industry and service sectors. Furthermore, a substantial part of the loan will go to projects located in convergence regions.

The interim Economic Partnership Agreement that provides duty and quota free access to the EU market for exports from Mauritius, Madagascar, Seychelles and Zimbabwe, has started to be applied from 14 of May. This Agreement also covers provisions on rules of origin, development cooperation, fisheries, trade defence instruments and dispute settlement.

The Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee adopted two texts with a slim majority stating MEPs position on the economic governance "two pack". The vote was not without acrimony as centre left and centre right groups were divided on whether the timing was right for a vote. Thus, a decision was then taken not to open negotiations with the Council and instead turn to the plenary to test the level of backing of the whole house.

The European Commission has proposed to create a European Innovation Partnership (EIP) focused on water in order to deal with water related challenges by promoting innovation. This partnership will seek to align the activities and outcomes of existing European, national and regional activities.

The European Commission has published a set of guidelines for Member States with the aim to prevent discriminatory treatment by road charging systems put in place in some states against foreign. These guidelines are intended to unify the criteria used by member states where such plans are already being used and those where they are in the way to be implemented.

According to the last data released by the European statistical Agency Eurostat London-Heathrow was the European airport which handled the highest number of passengers over the year 2010, despite a decrease of 0.2% compared with 2009. In total, more than 65 million passengers transited through the British airport.

Representatives from the European regions and cities, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council met in Brussels to debate about regions and cities contribution to the growth agenda in the occasion of the Forum on the Common Strategic Framework (CSF) 2014-2020 organised by the Committee of the Regions (CoR). The event took place just a few days after the adoption of CoR's crucial opinions of the new regulation on cohesion policy.

Member state ministers meeting at the Council for Education, Youth, Culture and Sport meeting between 10 and 11 May agreed on a partial general approach on the proposal for a regulation establishing the "Erasmus for All" programme for the period 2014-2020. The new programme will make special emphasis in strengthening education and training as essential part of the Europe 2020 strategy.

The EU-Iraq Partnership and Cooperation Agreement will mean the establishment of a comprehensive platform for enhancing ties and cooperation in a wide range of areas, from political matters such as countering terrorism and promoting human rights, to trade and investment in key areas such as energy and services.
 

Eurostat published the 16th edition of its yearbook which presents a comprehensive selection of the statistical data. Among the figures report there are data on statistics, as for example that 79% of citizens aged 20 to 24 in the EU had completed at least upper secondary education in 2010.