European Union News - European Union

The General Affairs Council meeting ended with the agreement of recommending the status of candidate country to Serbia, following its application for EU membership. On the other hand, it also approved, without discussion, strengthened measures against the Belarusian regime. In response to this decision, the Belarusian authorities asked to the EU Head of Delegation and the Polish Ambassador to leave the country.

The eligibility of Greek bonds used as collateral in Eurosystem monetary policy operations has been temporarily suspended by the European Central Bank (ECB). Additionally, the Governing Council decided that the liquidity needs of affected Eurosystem counterparties can be satisfied by the relevant national central banks. On the other hand, the President of the Eurogroup assured that it was expected the S&P decision to lower Greek ratings to Selective Default.

The European Commission published its forecast in which it foresees a continuation of the unexpected stalling of the recovery in late 2011 into the first two quarters of 2012. In addition, the inflation forecast for 2012 has been revised slightly upwards compared with the autumn, due to persistently high energy prices and increases in indirect taxes. 

The European Commission announced the proposal to suspend the 29% of the Hungary's cohesion fund allocations for 2013 for not addressing excessive deficit. Hungary had not taken effective action to bring its deficit to below the target of 3% of GDP by 2011 in a sustainable and credible manner. According to the Commission, this is unprecedented step which follows the repeated warnings to Hungary urging it to step up its efforts to end the country's excessive government deficit.

The European Commission Action team is going to Spain, where unemployment is affecting almost 50% of young people, to develop targeted plans together with national experts to be included in the National Reform Programmes which will be submitted to the European Commission (mid-April) as part of the European Semester of EU economic governance.

The Eurogroup welcomed the approval the agreement reached with the Greek government on the police package and also for the approval of the package by the Greek parliament. According to the Eurogroup, the new programme provides a comprehensive blueprint for putting the public finances and the economy of Greece back on a sustainable footing and hence for safeguarding financial stability in Greece and in the euro area as a whole.

The EU Court of Justice published its latests statistics concerning judicial activity. In 2011, it was reached a new record in the number of actions brought before and disposed of by the three judicial organs of the Court of Justice of the European Union. However increased efficiency and significant internal reforms have not completely absorbed the increase in caseload.

The European Commission as brought together all existing EU legislation governing environmental impact assessments in order to create a more compact, clearly translated and user-friendly version which comes into force on 17 February 2012. Thus, the administrative burden is reduced and also it helps Member States' authorities and developers to carry out the assessments.

The White paper published by the European Commission looks at how the EU and the Member States can work to tackle the major challenges that confront their pension systems. It puts forward a range of initiatives such as create the right conditions so that those who are able can continue working or ensure people who move to another country can keep their pension rights.

MEPs have given its green light to liberalise EU-Morocco trade in agricultural and fisheries products, while adopting a resolution highlighting a number of concerns. A majority of MEPs say the agreement will help alleviate economic, migratory and security problems following the Arab Spring.

The first Alert Mechanism Report published by the Commission on the EU's new rules on economic governance considers that the macroeconomic situation in the following countries needs to be investigated further: Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Hungary, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

MEPs at the Industry Committee want to prolong the European Network and Information Security Agency mandate further than 2013. The reason behind the extension is that ENISA can help the EU, Member States and private stakeholders to develop their capabilities to prevent, detect and respond to network and information security problems and incidents.