European Union News - Social Affairs

The political agreement reached by the Council and the European Parliament's negotiators was formally adopted by the Council on 8 March. The regulation will apply to protection measures ordered with a view to protecting a person when there exist serious grounds for considering that that person's life, physical or psychological integrity, personal liberty, security or sexual integrity is at risk all over the European Union.

Civil Society Day organised as part of the European Year of Citizens by the European Economic and Social Council (EESC) brought together over 250 civil society representatives which agreed that European leaders can no longer rely solely on elected politicians to pass on messages from their citizens. Participants also called on the EU institutions to stop putting procedures before results.

The European Commission published the results of an Eurobarometer that show over three quarters of respondents said that getting more women into leading roles in developing countries would improve respect for human rights. In addition, MEPs and MPs in a joint meeting with women professionals appealed for a stronger gender dimension in all policy-making in response to the economic crisis which hits women harder than men.

According to Eurostat, the figures for 2011 show that both women and men could expect at birth to live 62 years in a healthy condition and nine additional years at the age of 65 in the EU. In Sweden and Malta could expect to live more than 70 years in good health.

The European Commission launched a Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs to address up to 900 000 job vacancies expected to exist in Europe in Information and Communication technologies (ICT) by 2015. For this reason, the Commission called on Europe's digital businesses, governments, training and education sectors to join the Coalition.

According to Eurostat, the euro area unemployment rate was 11.9% in January 2013, up from 11.8% in December 2012. The EU unemployment rate was also higher than in December 2012. Compared with one year ago, the highest increases were registered in Greece (20.8% to 27.0% between November 2011 and November 2012), Cyprus (9.9% to 14.7%), Portugal (14.7% to 17.6%) and Spain (23.6% to 26.2%).

The European Commission welcomed the political agreement reached on the proposed Youth Guarantee Recommendation at the EU's Council of Employment and Social Affairs Ministers on 28th February. The Youth Guarantee implies that member states should put in place measures to ensure that young people up to age 25 receive a good quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months of leaving school or becoming unemployed.

The European Commission has proposed to amend five existing EU health and safety Directives on protection of workers from exposure to harmful chemicals to align them with the latest rules on classification, labelling and packaging of chemicals.