European Union News - Internal Market

The eleven countries belonging to the Northern Dimension Partnership for Transport and Logistics (NDPTL) have today endorsed setting up a secretariat for the partnership in the framework of the TEN-T Days conference in Zaragoza, Spain.

The EU’s health ministers backed the Spanish proposal on patient mobility within the Union, at the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO) held in Luxembourg.

On 9th June 2010, PSI Meeting 2010 "Realising the value of Public Sector Information" will be held in Madrid. This is an international meeting aimed to evaluate the economic and social benefits of the policies for the reuse of public sector information.

EU economic and financial affairs ministers are planning to support Estonia's entry into the euro area as of 1 January 2011 in their next meeting, on the grounds of positive reports already published by the European Commission (EC) and the European Central Bank.

Breaches of intellectual property rights (IPR) on the internet are a growing problem for the economy and require a response at EU level, including the removal of barriers to a single digital market by granting EU-wide copyright licences, according to members of the European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee.

A new European Commission report shows that EU telecoms markets have become more competitive thanks to the Commission's guidance in the consultation and review process known as the 'Article 7 procedure', whereby national telecoms regulators inform the Commission in advance of their plans to regulate parts of their national telecoms markets. As a result, citizens and businesses enjoy greater choice of services and cheaper prices.

The European Commission has adopted new competition rules for agreements between vehicle manufacturers and their authorised dealers, repairers and spare parts distributors. The new rules will increase competition in the market for repair and maintenance by improving access to technical information needed for the repairs and by making it easier to use alternative spare parts.

The Official Journal of the European Union has published a Call for Proposals to grant subsidies to promote transport policy objectives. The policy priorities have been fixed in the 2010 Work Programme adopted by the European Commission. Main topics selected are road safety and internal market (for inland and maritime navigation). The total budget is EUR 2,250,000.

The completion of the single market, the sustainability of national debts and a grass-roots led EU cohesion policy are central to the success of the EU2020 strategy, insisted MEPs in a series of resolutions adopted on Thursday. The vote on Parliament's EU 2020 resolution has been postponed until June.

Spain has set up a pilot project that will help travellers move faster through border crossing points within the European Union, through the use of an automated identification and document verification system, overseen by police officers.

The European Commission has issued its 2010 Converge Report. It assesses progress with convergence in countries with derogation from euro area membership. The nine Member States with a so-called 'derogation' have made uneven progress on the road to the single currency, and eight of them do not yet meet all the conditions for euro adoption. However, Estonia stands out from the group, fulfilling the criteria cleary, as a result of determined and efficient efforts by the Estonian government and Estonian people. Therefore, the Commission concluded that Estonia meets the criteria for adopting the euro and made a proposal to the Council to this effect.