European Union News - Internal Market

The EC has reiterated the potential of existing EU-rules on mediation in cross-border legal disputes, reminding Member States that these measures can only be effective if put in place by Member States at national level.

The European Commission has opened a public consultation in order to gather the points of view of stakeholders regarding the situation of  the implementation of the Directive on electronic commerce (2000/31/EC), and the future of electronic commerce in the internal market. Consultation is open until 15 October 2010.

The European Commission has approved under EU state aid rules the rollout of a public open network (Xarxa Oberta) in the Spanish region of Catalonia. The network will serve the connectivity needs of the regional administrative centres in the region and will be open at wholesale level to electronic communications operators seeking access to it.

The European Central Bank has issued on 29 July 2010, a Decision establishing that Central Banks will have access to transaction-level data on all participants of all TARGET2 components extracted from TARGET2 for the purposes of ensuring the efficient functioning of TARGET2 and its oversight. The nature of the data and operations managed under TARGET2 makes it necessary to preserve the highest level of confidentiality.

Commission's decision to clear acquisition of Arriva by Deutsche Bahn is conditional to the commitment to divest Arriva  Deutschland including the rail and bus business in Germany. Further to this commitment, the Commission approves this transaction in which it is considered to be a sign about potential benefits of cross-border integration in the newly liberalised transport markets.

The European Commission has approved under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of Swiss pharmaceutical company Alcon by Novartis. After the investigation, the Commission has concluded that some competition concerns might arise and therefore make this decision conditional to Novartis' commitment to divest several products in the ophthalmological pharmaceutical and consumer vision care in EEA or in specific Member States.

The Official Journal of the European Union publishes on 6 August 2010, Directive 2010/45/EU of 7 July 2010 on standards of quality and safety of human organs intended for transplantation. In addition to its main concern, the security and quality of human organs, the Directive also contributes indirectly to combating organ trafficking by introducing a series of mechanisms aiming to it.

A joint mission to Romania from the European Commission services, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank concluded that conditions for the third disbursement of the EU Balance of Payments assistance programme were met. Although important efforts are made by Romanian authorities some measures are still to be put in place in order to meet all EU requirements.

The Commission has welcomed the Municipality of Lloret de Vistalegre on the island of Majorca as the 5.000th authority to sign up for the Internal Market Information (IMI) system. The system is currently being used for administrative cooperation in the context of the recognition of professional qualifications and the provision of cross-border services under the Services Directive, providing service for those modules to 870 and more than 4.800 authorities respectively. 400 authorities and IMI coordinators have access to the system for both legislative areas.