European Union News - Social Affairs

Helping member states in achieving that the more than six million young people in the EU who leave education and training with no more than secondary level qualifications, stay in school and improve their labour chances, is one of the key objectives that the Commission aims to achieve with its new action plan to reduce early school leaving. This action plan puts forward some concrete strategies aimed at reducing EU average rate of early school leavers to under 10% by the end of the decade, from the current level of 14.4%.

On the eve of its Plenary Session on 27 and 28 January 2011, the Committee of the Regions has invited interested regional and local representatives as well as practitioners to share good practice and discuss on topics centred around the objectives set out for the European Year of Volunteering. The forum, which will take place in Brussels on 26 January, will debate over the great potential of volunteering for the social, economic and territorial cohesion of Europe.

Within the context of an open debate on the future of public pension systems in some member states, the European Economic and Social Committee has put forward its analysis of the situation and what would be some of the implications of different measures in this field. In this report, prepared at the request of the Commission, the Committee upholds that increasing the retirement age alone will not solve this problem and that success of funding pension systems largely depends on active employment policies.

The directive establishes specific deadlines for the payment of invoices and the right to compensation in cases of late payment in all commercial transactions. This new rules aim at increasing the protection of creditors and contribute to the better functioning of Internal Market, especially for SMEs. Member states will now have two years to comply with its provisions.

By means of a series of new proposals adopted on 18 January 2011, the European Commission intends to take advantage at EU level of all the social, economic and organisational potential brought by sport. These initiatives, which are based on the results of consultations carried out by the European Commission, will mean the launch of twelve new projects in 2011.

This is one of the main findings revealed by the report presented by the European Commission on 16 December on the progress of the Ambient Assisted Living joint programme. The report highlights very high levels of involvement by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in projects as well as strong levels of financial support by participating countries, and makes some recommendations to ensure ongoing positive results.

The European Commission launched in 7 January 2010 a public consultation on the Professional Qualifications Directive, an opportunity for stakeholders to highlight areas of the Directive they feel could be improved, seeking views on how to better integrate professionals working in the Single Market, and raises the option of a European Professional Card. The results of the Consultation will feed into an evaluation report and a Green Paper due this autumn prior to Commission's proposal for modernising the Directive in 2012.

According to the data released by the European Statistical Office Eurostat, the average unemployment rate registered in the Euro area reached 10.1% rate in November 2010, a percentage slightly higher than the average of the European Union as a whole, where the rate was 9.6%.

Researchers from the Czech Republic, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Sweden have developed a solution to give elderly and disabled people easier control over the various electronic appliances and services in their homes using their mobile phone or other devices. The "I2HOME" project, funded by the EU with 2.7 million Euro, has developed a personalised and simplified Universal Remote Console interface based on existing and evolving open standards.

With this formal ratification, the European Union becomes for the first time in history a party to an international human rights treaty: the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, which aims to ensure that people with disabilities can enjoy their rights on an equal basis with all other citizens. This text is the first comprehensive human rights treaty to be ratified by the Union as a whole.

As part of its review of the EU working time Directive, the European Commission launched on 21 December the mandatory second stage of consultation with workers' and employers' representatives at EU level. It also presented a detailed Report on the legal implementation of the Working Time Directive in Member States.