Tag: commission

The European Commission has named 2013 "European Year of Citizens" to raise awareness about Union citizens' rights in shaping the future of Europe.

The EU has no intention of imposing a ban on Chanel's No. 5 perfume, a European Commission spokesman has said, after a study recommended that tree moss used in the famous luxury perfume should be banned because of potential allergic reactions.

The French government said it "regrets" the European Commission's decision to turn down a request by France to monitor South Korea car imports, after a bilateral trade deal entered into force in July 2011.

Trade unions say the European Commission's new industrial policy must be followed up with concrete actions.

Consumers who are willing to pay extra for organic fruits, vegetables and other goods may not always get what they are hoped for due to lax oversight in some EU countries.

The first six European Citizens’ Initiatives (ECIs) in EU history have launched campaigns and are collecting signatures, but it’s at the moment impossible to support an ECI online due to what one group calls "severe" problems.

The European Commission wants to ensure that consumers can have full access to high-speed Internet at any time but refrained from regulating on so-called "net neutrality" for now, saying the remedy may be worse than the disease.

The European Commission is expected to provide significantly more money for regional environmental and climate projects under proposals scheduled to be unveiled on Monday (12 December).

The European Commission yesterday (2 June) decided to split its justice, freedom and security department in two, creating new directorates-general (DGs) for home affairs and justice and moving around several top officials.

With decades of EU institutional reform and eastern enlargement culminating with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union is now "as close to the final EU institutional balance as we are likely to get in our lifetimes" and leaders can focus on pressing issues like climate change, energy and food security instead, Tom Spencer, executive director of the European Centre for Public Affairs, told EurActiv in an interview. 

Ahead of a confirmation vote in the European Parliament on 9 February, EU commissioners are being asked by their president, José Manuel Barroso, to make their cabinets more multinational and gender-balanced, an internal note seen by EurActiv reveals.

Rumiana Jeleva, the embattled Bulgarian commissioner-designate, announced her resignation from all political responsibilities on Tuesday (19 January), following accusations of wrongdoing during a parliamentary confirmation hearing last week. A vote on the new college is now scheduled for 9 February.

Commissioner-designate Rumiana Jeleva was the CEO of a company established by the former communist secret services in Liechtenstein, a leading socialist MEP told EurActiv yesterday (18 January) as the European Parliament's legal service appeared to clear Jeleva of any wrongdoing.

Since the presentation of the new team of European commissioners by José Manuel Barroso, officials have been busy swapping seats in a round of 'musical chairs' that involves some of the most powerful EU jobs in Brussels.

A leading group of MEPs on Friday (20 November) warned European Commission President José Manuel Barroso not to create a separate climate action department in the next EU executive, as rumours abound in Brussels that the environmental portfolio currently held by Stavros Dimas could be split in two.

The European Commission should address the EU's "rigid" recruitment and career development systems to bring them more in line with today's flexible labour market, Siim Kallas, a vice-president of the EU executive, told EurActiv in an interview.

Speculation is growing in the Czech Republic over the identity of the country's next European commissioner, with incumbent Vladimir Špidla, former Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek and former Deputy Prime Minister for EU Affairs Alexandr Vondra among the leading candidates. EurActiv Czech Republic reports.

After the European Commission abandoned plans for an EU-led vaccination programme, EU states may share scarce supplies of H1N1 vaccine under a scheme allowing for redistribution of stocks from the "haves" to the "have nots".

"Europe needs an ethically robust system to choose a real leader with civic guts and moral courage," writes David Price, founder of the Schuman.info website, in a July post on Blogactiv.

Mobile phone companies have until the end of April to voluntarily standardise chargers or face new legislation to allow consumers to use the same charging device should they swap phones, the European Commission said yesterday (25 March).

EU Budget Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaitė  and MEP Valdis Dombrovskis are leaving their European seats to return home to countries troubled by the financial and economic crisis, running for the highest office in Lithuania and becoming prime minister of Latvia respectively.

The EU executive was not "courageous" enough to set out concrete initiatives to promote minority languages in its new multilingualism strategy, according to parliamentarians from the European Free Alliance, who called for "specific measures than go beyond generics" ahead of the European Day of Languages on 26 September.

Despite recent nuclear scares in Slovenia and France, the European Commission this week gave the go-ahead for the two remaining reactors to be completed at the controversial Mochovce nuclear plant in Slovakia. The decision was widely condemned by environmental group Greenpeace. EurActiv Slovakia reports.

MEPs agreed yesterday (17 June) to back new waste legislation despite the lack of binding goals for member states on waste prevention, while targets for re-use and recycling are included. NGOs and green groups immediately slammed the directive for not going far enough.