European Union News - Internal Market

The Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) has reviewed the risk control measures in the framework for assets eligible for use as collateral in Eurosystem market operations. The resulting changes stem from the biennial review of the Eurosystem risk control measures and the Governing Council’s decision of 8 April 2010 to introduce graduated valuation haircuts for lower-rated assets.

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) addressed on 27 July a letter to the Internal Market and Services Directorate General of the Commission, in which he took stock of what has been achieved and what further progress needs to be made on the issues raised in the Commission Report on the state of data protection in the Internal Market Information System (IMI).

The Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission welcomed on 23 July the publication of the results of the EU-wide stress-testing exercise,  which was prepared and conducted by the CEBS and national supervisory authorities, in close cooperation with the ECB. Institutions were particularly supportive with the transparency under which the exercise was conducted, given the specific market circumstances under which banks currently operate.

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.

The Official Journal of the European Union published on 22 July 2010, Council Directive 2010/45/EU of 13 July 2010 amending Directive 2006/112/EC on the common system of value added tax as regards the rules on invoicing. These new rules will enter into force on the 20th day following its publication and Member states will have to adopt the due provisions to comply with it by 31 December 2012.

The EU appeals against the panel report in large civil aircraft dispute. The report issued on 30 June 2010 and need to be corrected or clarified. The report issued on 30 June 2010 and sides with the EU in rejecting a significant number of US claims.

The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of NBC Universal, the US global media and entertainment company, by Comcast Corporation. After examining the operation, the Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it.

Council of Economic and Financial Affairs Ministers, ECOFIN, held in Brussels on July 13th 2010 have gone through the measures to control excessive deficits taken by Member states in the past months. Over the meeting Ministers have also set out its position with a view to continuing negotiations with the Parliament about financial supervision package. The Council also adopted measure to simplify VAT invoicing and agreed on Estonia accession to the Euro.

The Official Journal of the European Union publishes on July 8th, the notification sent to the Commission by Honeywell USA, informing about the operation by which it would take control over French company Sperian. After this publication, Commission opens a ten day period for interested parties to present their allegations.