European Union News - Internal Market

The Internal Market Committee voted on its input to forthcoming proposal to revise EU rules on cross-border mobility for professionals. MEPs agreed that without compromising the reliability or safety of their services to citizens, the skills of doctors, engineers, dentists and other professionals applying to work in another EU Member State must be recognised faster.

According to the R&D Scoreboard published by the Commission, although the top EU companies recovered strongly in 2010, data for the world's top 1400 companies shows that EU companies as a whole lagging behind major competitors from the US and some Asian economies on R&D growth.

The European Commission adopted a package of measures aimed at increasing interaction with parties in antitrust proceedings and strengthening the mechanisms for safeguarding parties' procedural rights. Additionally, among the measures adopted, the Commission expands and strengthens the Hearing Officer role.

An EU agricultural commodity outlook 2011/2012 has been published by the European Commission. This publication follows the announcement of Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Dacian Cioloş at the G-20 agricultural ministers meeting in June 2011. In addition, the European Parliament debated with the Commissioner the EU farm policy after 2013. In general terms, MEPs approves the CAP reform proposed, but with reservations.

The European Commission has temporarily approved, under EU state aid rules, the nationalisation of Belgium's second largest bank Dexia Bank Belgium (DBB) through its acquisition by the Belgian State for €4 billion to be paid to Dexia SA. However, the Commission's in-depth investigation will assess whether the acquisition price contains state aid, and if so, whether the aid complies with EU rules for restructuring aid.

On 13 of October, a high-level symposium commemorated the 20th anniversary of the EU-US cooperation agreement. At the celebrations, the competition authorities of the European Union and of the United States have agreed to further strengthen cooperation on mergers investigated in both jurisdictions. The revision provides greater detail on issues regarding timing, collection of evidence and definition of remedies.

According to the data released by Eurostat in September 2011, Euro area annual inflation was 3.0%, whereas for the whole of the European Union the rate was 3.3%. Monthly inflation was 0.8% and 0.6% respectively.

The European Commission presented a Communication on "Industrial policy: Reinforcing competitiveness" which it states that the EU industry is in good shape and has the potential to push the European economy back to growth. The Communication looks specifically at the industrial competitiveness performance of the Member States and its conclusions show considerable differences among Member States.

Parliament approved a non-legislative resolution which calls for a stronger role for the Commission to push through more harmonisation on the tax system in order to increase efficiency and a reduce red tape for businesses.

The European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, presented a roadmap which is intended to restore confidence in the Euro area and the European Union as a whole. According to the Commission, this programme is created to clarify the doubts over the sustainability of sovereign debt, the stability of the banking system and the European Union's growth prospects.

Every year European companies are estimated to be loosing around 26 billion euros of because of the obstacles caused by divergent regulations in contract law applying to sales between member states. In order to overcome some of these problems, the Commission has proposed common rules in sales law that will provide higher level of protection and facilitate transactions between member states.