Seven months after new rules against unjustified geo-blocking began to apply, general consumer awareness of the new rules against restrictions for online shopping and cross-border sales is already high. A Eurobarometer survey published recently shows that just a few months after the new rules on geo-blocking started to apply, 50% of EU citizens are generally […]
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EU and Mercosur reach agreement on trade
The European Union and Mercosur reached a political agreement for an ambitious, balanced and comprehensive trade agreement. The new trade framework – part of a wider Association Agreement between the two regions – will consolidate a strategic political and economic partnership and create significant opportunities for sustainable growth on both sides, while respecting the environment […]
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Illegal fishing: EU lifts Taiwan’s yellow card following reforms
The EU recognises Taiwan’s reforms put in place during the last three and a half years to tackle illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU).Today the European Commission decided to lift the yellow card acknowledging the progress made by Taiwan and the major upgrade of its fisheries legal and administrative systems to fight against IUU fishing. […]
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Tourism trips – Three quarters of all trips by EU residents are within their own country – Majority of the trips are made by car
Summer is coming and we want to go on a trip … but do you know how Europeans travel? The last statistic of Eurostat tells us everything in detail. In 2017, EU residents made 1.3 billion trips with overnight stays that amounted to almost 6.4 billion nights. The average trip length was 5.1 nights. Compared with 2016, the […]
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EU mobilises €21 million to support Palestine refugees via the UN Relief and Works Agency
The European Commission will mobilise additional €21 million for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) on top of €82 million already paid into the programme budget this year to support vulnerable Palestine Refugees in the Middle East. The announcement was made at the UNRWA annual pledging conference which took place in New York on […]
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How the digital revolution is transforming EU-funded brain research
Digital technologies embed themselves firmly into all aspects of our lives, including into the mainstream of neurosciences research to help unravel the complexity of brain disorders. Innovative projects from across the full spectrum of EU-funded research programmes are helping science make sense of arguably the most complex and mysterious machine in existence: the human brain. […]
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Chemical safety: EU rules ensure high levels of protection for citizens and the environment and contribute to efficient functioning of the Single Market
The European Commission has published a review of the EU chemicals legislative framework, which addresses some 40 pieces of sectoral chemicals legislation, including specific rules on chemicals found in pesticides or cosmetics, or rules on the labelling, classification and packaging of chemicals. The report, which complements the 2018 review of the EU’s REACH Regulation, confirms that the rules […]
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Dual Food Quality: Commission releases study assessing differences in the composition of EU food products
Recently, the Commission published the results of a pan-European testing campaign of food products showing that some products are identically or similarly branded while having a different composition. Since his State of the Union Address in 2017, President Jean-Claude Juncker has been committed to addressing the issue of dual quality of products. The European Commission […]
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Adoption of new rules to better protect children caught in cross-border parental disputes
The EU makes it easier and faster for decisions on divorce, legal separation and marriage annulment, as well as on parental responsibility issues and international child abduction to be applied across borders. The Council recently adopted a revision of the so-called Brussels IIa regulation which sets out rules on the jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of […]
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