European Union News - Social Affairs

The Agriculture & Fisheries Council will meet in Luxembourg on Monday 23 (starting at 2 p.m.) and Tuesday 24 June (starting 9.30 a.m.), under the Presidency of Mr Iztok Jarc, Slovenian Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Food. Commissioners Mariann Fischer Boel, Androulla Vassiliou and Joe Borg will represent the Commission at the meeting.

On the 20th June 2008 the European Commission published a report considering and approaching common topics for debate concerning the actual Common Agricultural Policy. The report published offered explanations and the opinion of the Commission with reference to these topics.

On Tuesday 24 June, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the Committee of the Regions (CoR) hosted in Brussels the High-level conference on the "Civilian Applications of GALILEO", which they co-organise together with Business Bridge Europe.

A conference in Brussels, on the 19th June, puts the spotlight on a new tool that makes it easier for regions to team up to manage projects involving more than one Member State. The conference, entitled 'Building a European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation', aims to promote setting up new groupings under the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) instrument. The event is organised jointly by the European Commission and the Committee of the Regions, in cooperation with the Slovenian Presidency of the European Union and the European Parliament.

According to the latest report from Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, a third of household expenditure in the EU27 in 2005 went on housing, including utilities & furniture (33.1%), and almost a fifth on food, beverages & tobacco (19.4%). The other half of the expenditure was mainly dedicated to transport (11.9%), recreation & culture (8.4%), clothing & footwear (5.7%), restaurants & hotels (5.3%), health (3.4%), communications (3.3%) and education (1.0%).

Working Arrangements establishing a framework for cooperation between Frontex and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were signed today in Frontex headquarters in Warsaw.

EU Agency ENISA has advised companies on 12 threats from accidental loss or theft of confidential corporate data on unsecured USB flash drives. n a report issued on the 19th June 2008, ENISA, the EU Agency for European Network and Information Security, highlights the potential misuse of USB flash drives to breach security of corporate data or introduce malicious code.

The 42th Governing Board of the European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR), was held on Thursday, 12 June and Friday, 13 June 2008. The meeting took place in Pristina, Kosovo, where the Agency started its reconstruction work on behalf of the EU in 1999, in the immediate aftermath of the conflict. In December 2008, the EAR will officially close its doors as its mandate is coming to an end. But the Agency has already started to hand over the EU assistance programmes to the European Commission delegations in the Balkans. 12 June 2008

The compromise reached between Parliament negotiators and the Council on the directive on the return of illegal immigrants was approved at first reading by the full Parliament on Wednesday. This legislation, which is a step towards a European immigration policy, will encourage the voluntary return of illegal immigrants but otherwise lay down minimum standards for their treatment.

Ms Brenda King, president of the European Economic and Social Committee Section for Employment and Social Affairs on the 18th June 2008, addressed the Polish Parliament Sejm and called for action to tap a potentially large labour pool by integrating people with disabilities into the labour market.

The European Union�s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) will join UEFA, FARE, FIFPro, football players and others in signing a pledge� supporting respect for diversity at a launch event for EURO 2008� on 7th June in Basel, Switzerland. This pledge� is timely as a spate of events in Europe over the past year has shown that the spectrum of racism and other forms of intolerance still haunt the sport.

The European Commission welcomes the European Parliament's second reading vote today approving the agreement reached with the Council on the revision of the waste framework directive, the central pillar of EU waste management policy.