European Union News - Internal Market

The Council adopted the new rules which relieves very small companies from red tape. The new provisions seek to reduce administrative bureaucracy for small companies. In addition, the Commission presented the report on administrative burden reduction and calls on Member States to learn from each other.

The main goal of the debate held by Ministers was to prepare the way to reach an agreement on the main principles of the reform at the Competitiveness Council in May, with the final purpose of getting the reform approved in co-legislation with the European Parliament before the end of 2012. The debate focused on the new general legal framework, more specifically in the degree of flexibility that should apply in the use of competitive procedures with negotiation and the rules for certain categories of services: social, cultural, health, etc.
 

The Commission announced the opening negotiations on a deep and comprehensive free trade area with Armenia in order to boost economic growth and investment with this Eastern European Partner. The negotiations will not only tackle market access conditions but also focus on regulatory approximation, which will help to achieve a closer economic integration of Armenia with the EU.

The European Parliament approved a new regulation that boosts dairy farmers' bargaining power to get fair prices for their raw milk and help them prepare for the end of milk quotas in 2015. To enter into force, the new regulation still needs to be formally endorsed by the Council. It will apply until the end of June 2020.

MEPs at the plenary session voted to require riskier banks to contribute more to the schemes than others and say that funding for each scheme should equal 1.5% of the deposits that it covers. In addition, bank deposit guarantee schemes must return €5,000 of a depositor's money within a week of being asked, wherever a struggling bank is unable to do so. They also consider that it are needed shorter-term solutions and Eurobonds for Eurozone stability.

The White paper published by the European Commission looks at how the EU and the Member States can work to tackle the major challenges that confront their pension systems. It puts forward a range of initiatives such as create the right conditions so that those who are able can continue working or ensure people who move to another country can keep their pension rights.

MEPs have given its green light to liberalise EU-Morocco trade in agricultural and fisheries products, while adopting a resolution highlighting a number of concerns. A majority of MEPs say the agreement will help alleviate economic, migratory and security problems following the Arab Spring.

The European Parliament approved two resolutions which calls on Member States for a deeper economic policy coordination and to act on structural reform recommendations besides to improve transparency. The resolutions which are a reaction to the Commission's annual growth survey and employment guidelines, also call for more effort on growth, employment and poverty.

From 1 June of 2012, organic products certified in Europe or in the United States may be sold as organic in either region. The new agreement announced by the European Commission implies the creation of a strong foundation from which to promote organic agriculture, benefiting the growing organic industry and supporting jobs and businesses on a global scale.

The plan for the EU presented by the Commission seeks to reverse its relative decline in High-Performance Computing (HPC) use and capabilities. Thus, the EU will double its investment in HPC and become home to computers that can perform 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (i.e. 1018) operations per second before 2020. Half of the investment would be for development and training and for new centres of excellence, creating thousands of jobs.