EU Legislation, Initiatives, etc.
EU News: The Schengen area of free movement allows more than 400m EU citizens from 26 European countries and an increasing number of non-EU citizens, to travel without internal border controls. Recently the Commission adopted its second Schengen 'health check', a biannual overview on the functioning of the Schengen area.
EU News: A Decision to modernise & improve EURES, the pan-EU job search network, has been adopted by the European Commission. The Decision will help to increase mobility of workers across Member States and pave the way for a true European labour market.
The EURES reform aims to make it easier for jobseekers to contact employers looking for particular skills, to focus on sectors and occupations with skills shortages and to support targeted mobility schemes for young people.
The EURES reform aims to make it easier for jobseekers to contact employers looking for particular skills, to focus on sectors and occupations with skills shortages and to support targeted mobility schemes for young people.
EU News: In addition to developing wider cybersecurity strategies for Europe, the European Commission takes concrete actions to tackle cyber security risks and pools resources with national governments, industry, universities & NGOs, to develop innovative technologies to improve cybersecurity.
From 2013 to 2020, the European Commission has earmarked €400m is to support key enabling & industrial technologies such as cyber security, privacy and trust technologies, and an additional €450m is earmarked for 'Secure Societies' research which includes aspects of cybersecurity.
EU News: Credit rating agencies will have to obey additional rules on sovereign debt ratings, including 3 set dates per year for issuing them, under a deal agreed by Parliament, the Council and the Commission last week. Cross-ownership of agencies and the entities that they rate will be limited to prevent conflicts of interest and agency mergers will be restricted to boost competition.
EU News: Recently, the European Commission outlined a series of actions to tackle marketing scams, such as those of misleading directory companies. The aim is to better protect businesses, professionals and NGOs across Europe from dishonest traders who do not play by the rules and use misleading marketing practices, such as sending out forms asking businesses to update details in their directories, seemingly for free, and then charging them annual fees.
NE: Wet weather is having a serious impact across large parts of the country and in addition to the well-publicised floods & transport disruption, many farmers & farm businesses are also facing extremely difficult conditions.
To help them, Natural England is continuing to make derogations to Environmental Stewardship schemes available. This involves temporarily lifting some of the land management requirements that normally apply under Environmental Stewardship options, so that farmers & growers have more flexibility to deal with the impact of the wet weather.
EU News: The European Commission has recently launched a public portal allowing citizens & businesses to access up to date information on the advancement of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) through satellite-based dynamic maps, facts, figures & various audio-visual and interactive elements. In practice, it will allow users to see the live development of the TEN-T network in the region of their interest.
EU News: The European Commission has ‘kicked off’ the second annual cycle of the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP) 2013 with the publication of the Alert Mechanism Report (AMR).
The report calls for in-depth reviews of developments related to the accumulation & unwinding of macroeconomic imbalances in 14 EU Member States: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Finland, Sweden and the UK.
The report calls for in-depth reviews of developments related to the accumulation & unwinding of macroeconomic imbalances in 14 EU Member States: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Finland, Sweden and the UK.
EU News: The European Commission recently put forward a proposal for an Environment Action Programme (EAP) to guide EU environment policy up to 2020.
Coming shortly after its recommendations for short term growth see IP/12/1274, which emphasise the need for ensuring not just the growth of today, but also tomorrow, the Commission has now made proposals ‘aimed at protecting nature, stimulating sustainable growth, creating new jobs and setting Europe on a path to prosperity and health within the limits of the planet’.
Coming shortly after its recommendations for short term growth see IP/12/1274, which emphasise the need for ensuring not just the growth of today, but also tomorrow, the Commission has now made proposals ‘aimed at protecting nature, stimulating sustainable growth, creating new jobs and setting Europe on a path to prosperity and health within the limits of the planet’.
FSA: A call for evidence on EU regulations on animal health & welfare and food safety in the UK has been published by Defra and the Food Standards Agency – See ‘Consultations’ section for more information.
FCO: Minister for Europe, David Lidington, has issued a Statement on the Balance of Competencies Review: Foreign Policy Report. The FCO has also published its Call for Evidence on the foreign policy aspects of the Review – See ‘In the News’ section for more information.
