European Union News - European Union

The International Climate Change Talks have been celebrated in Bonn between 2 and 6 August 2010 as a preparatory intersession in advance of the sixth meeting for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which will take place in Cancun, Mexico in November and December 2010. Although good progress has been made, the Commission still believes that further efforts will be needed specially regarding commitment from non-Kyoto countries.

Member States are using the enhanced cooperation procedure to push forward with rules allowing international couples to select which country's law would apply to their divorce. The Regulation which applies this mechanism for the first time must now be approved by the participating 14 countries during an upcoming Council meeting before it can definitely enter into force.

The Directorate-General for Regional Policy has launched a tender to study the relevance and the effectiveness of ERDF and Cohesion Fund support to regions with specific geographical features.

According to data provided by the statistical office of the European Union (Eurostat), the population of the European Union amounted to 501 million on 1 January 2010. This data show that an important part of this increase comes from net migration rate which was of 0.9 million people, as well as natural increase of 0.5 million. 

On the basis of the positions of the Parties, the first meeting of the Accession Conference with Iceland at Ministerial level decided on 27 July the opening of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) on the Accession of Iceland to the European Union, following the decision of the European Council of 17 June that accession negotiations should be opened. Contacts between the Iceland and the EU side will be now pursued in order to define the date and the agenda for the first meeting of the Conference at Deputy level.

Akadimia Platonos, Die Fremde and Illégal have been the three films shortlisted on 27 July for the European Parliament's 2010 LUX film prize, during an event at the Venice International Film Festival. Like past LUX Prize contenders, these films speak to Europeans' hearts and identities, forcing them to ask themselves about cultural and family relations, and the rules by which they live.

The General Affairs Council met on 26 July for the first time since the beginning of the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. On the agenda: a presentation of the programme for the Presidency, followed by a series of discussions concerning a variety of subjects, among other things Iceland’s application for membership of the EU as well as the establishment of the European External Action Service.

The Council adopted on 26 July the decision establishing the European External Action Service (EEAS) and setting out its organisation and functioning. The Council therefore sets up EEAS as a functionally autonomous body of the Union under the authority of the High Representative as provided by the Treaty of Lisbon.

The European Commission has extended until 31 December 2010 the Spanish recapitalisation measures in favour of the banking sector and the Portuguese bank guarantee and bank recapitalisation schemes.

The Official Journal of the European Union publishes in its issue on 23 July, the Council Recommendation of 13 July 2010 on broad guidelines for the economic policies of the Member States and of the Union. With these guidelines Council follows Lisbon Treaty mandate for the adoption of both employment guidelines as well as broad economic policy guidelines to guide Member States’ policies.

Commission has published Annual Report on EU Customs actions to enforce intellectual property rights. In 2009, EU Customs took action in 43,500 cases involving several million products suspected of being counterfeited or pirated at the external borders of the EU, according to this report.