European Union News - Internal Market

Growth expected to return in the second half of 2009. Forecasts are still uncertain but fears of a severe, prolonged recession are fading. But as economic activity at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 was worse than initially estimated, GDP is still expected to fall by 4% overall this year in both the EU and the euro area, as forecast in the spring. However, uncertainty remains rife, and while the recovery may surprise on the upside in the very short term, how sustainable it will be remains to be seen.

The European Commission has approved two applications from Belgium for assistance under the European Globalisation adjustment Fund (EGF) – the first to benefit under revised EGF rules.

The Commission has adopted a package of measures aimed at authorising law enforcement authorities to consult the EURODAC database of fingerprints for the purpose of fighting terrorism and serious crime, such as trafficking in human beings and in drugs. The measures also aim at integrating the suggestions of the European Parliament and the Council on the EURODAC Regulation for making the EURODAC database more efficient.

DG Health and Consumers has issued today the results of an EU-wide investigation involving 26 Member States and Norway and Iceland into misleading advertising and unfair practices on websites selling consumer electronic goods.

The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation under the EU Merger Regulation into the planned acquisition of US hardware and software vendor Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation, a US database and application software company. Commission has shown its concern about the implications over competition between Oracle databases and Sun's MySQL, and will now have 90 working days, until January 19th 2010, to take a final decision.

 Aid for private storage of butter and skimmed milk powder should be prolonged to help farmers through the current crisis. Agriculture Committee MEPs gave their go ahead on Wednesday to a Commission proposal to prolong intervention periods for the butter and milk powder market until February next year.

Swedish government ministers have outlined their Council Presidency priorities to the committees on constitutional affairs, climate change, international trade and gender equality. Further presentations will be made to other committees this week, now that MEPs have returned from their holidays.

On 1–3 September, the European Parliament’s buildings in Brussels will be crawling with Swedish ministers and officials. The ministers will be presenting the Swedish Presidency’s priorities to the Parliament’s committees. The committee presentations are public and can be followed on the Presidency website.

The European Commission announced on August 24th 2009 the names of the 52 finalists that are going to compete for the European eGovernment Awards 2009, as well as those projects which have been awarded with a Good Practice label in the framework of these Award. The Awards ceremony will take place on November 19th 2009 in Malmö, Sweden, within the 5th Ministerial eGovernment Conference.

The European Commission's 2008 Report on Competition Policy gives an overview of the main developments in EU competition policy and major enforcement actions. In the present economic and financial crisis situation, the report demonstrates how the tools of competition policy were used to face the financial and economic crisis and highlights the benefits that competition policy delivers to consumers.