European Union News - European Union

The European Parliament held a debate on Hungary with the attendance of the Danish Minister for European Affairs Nicolai Wammen on behalf of the Council Presidency and the Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán. Mr Wammen endorsed the Commission’s efforts to ensure Hungary’s compliance with EU law.

Following several exchanges with the Hungarian authorities on the drafts of the new legislation, the European Commission launched accelerated infringement proceedings against Hungary regarding he independence of its central bank and data protection authorities as well as over measures affecting the judiciary. Therefore, the Commission initiated the first stage in the EU's infringement procedure against Hungary.

The European Parliament has chosen Martin Schulz (S&D, Germany) as its new President. MEPs elected Martin Schulz with 387 votes in favour out of 670 cast, thus, with absolute majority. He replaces the outgoing President Jerzy Buzek (EPP, Poland). 

Jean-Claud Juncker, current Prime Minister of Luxembourg and the President of the Eurogroup highlighted in a statement that although the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) continues to be assigned the best possible credit rating by Moody’s (Aaa) and Fitch (AAA), it is need to investigate the Standard and Poor's to downgrade its credit rating from AAA to AA+.

The European Defence Agency presented the European Defence Standards Reference system (EDSTAR) portal which replaces the European Handbook for Defence Procurement (EHDP). The new portal contains references to “Best practice” standards and "standard-like" specifications. EDSTAR is to be used by governmental organisations and defence industry for the procurement of defence materiel (including development and production).

The Eurobarometer presented by the European Parliament shows that 49% of Europeans interviewed felt that Parliament should focus first on the fight against poverty and social inclusion. The survey also found that 40% of Europeans would like to receive more information from the European Parliament on possible ways to tackle the crisis.

The European Commission presented a new Eurobarometer survey in which it assures that Europeans are ready for 'active ageing'. In particular, over 60% believe that we should be allowed to continue working after retirement age and one third says that they would like to work longer themselves. For most citizens, people aged 55 years and older play a major role in key areas of society.

Eurostat published its latest statistics on the active ageing in the EU which show that the employment rate for persons aged 60-64 increased from 23% in 2000 to 31% in 2010 and from 50% to 61% for those aged 55-59. With regard to the statistics by country, the share of those aged 55 and over varied between 21% in Ireland and 33% in Germany and Italy in 2010.