Urban Mobility European Union
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/urban/urban_mobility/index_en.htm The Urban Mobility Video is a three-minute film that explains the approach of the European Commission about urban mobility....
By: European Commission
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Urban Mobility European Union - Video
Heres one flight delay that European Union citizens might appreciate: The European Parliament has grounded an agreement that would have sent more passenger data winging its way to Canadian law enforcers. And like other flight delays, it could have huge repercussionsin this case for similar data exchange deals with the U.S. and Australia.
Members of the European Parliament voted 383 to 271 to refer the Canadian flight data deal to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for an opinion on whether it is in line with data protection rules enshrined in EU treaties and the EUs Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Canada and the EU are in the process of renegotiating a 2006 deal to exchange so-called passenger name record (PNR) data for the purposes of fighting terrorism and serious crime. This includes information provided by passengers when they book or check in for flights, and data collected by airlines for commercial purposes. It consists of about 60 elements, including itineraries, ticket references, contact details, travel dates, means of payment used, seat numbers and baggage information.
The EU Council of Ministers signed the revised deal with Canada in June, but it still needs the European Parliaments approval before it can enter into force.
Parliament is concerned that building such a database to retain and share passengers personal data could be illegal in the light of a ruling by the CJEU in May. That judgment invalidated EU laws requiring communications providers to retain metadatain much the same way as flight data would be retainedunder the PNR agreementbecause the laws interfered with fundamental privacy rights.
Privacy groups welcomed the Parliaments decision Tuesday, and said that the CJEU ruling could have a big impact on similar deals.
The vote might also have consequences for the EUs existing PNR sharing deals with the U.S. and Australia, said Alexander Sander, managing director of German digital rights group Digitale Gesellschaft, welcoming the decision.
If the court rules this is not in line with EU fundamental rights they would first of all have to stop the already existing agreements with the U.S. and Australia, he said.
It doesnt stop there though. The court ruling could also affect the EU-U.S. Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) Agreement under which some data from the SWIFT international bank messaging system is transmitted to U.S. authorities, again to fight terrorism. That deal is really similar to the PNR agreement, and Im really sure that we have to rethink it as well, if the CJEUs opinion on the deal is in line with the April data retention ruling, Sander said.
Joe McNamee, executive director of European digital rights group EDRi was also delighted by the Parliaments decision.
Excerpt from:
60 things European legislators don't want Canada to learn about air passengers
Pope Francis addresses the European Parliament. Photo: Reuters
Pope Francis told Europe's leaders on Tuesday to do more to help thousands of migrants risking their lives trying to get into the continent, saying they had to stop the Mediterranean becoming "a vast cemetery".
Addressing the European Parliament for the first time, Francis also said Europe should create jobs and not allow the bureaucracy of its institutions to suffocate the ideals which once made it vibrant.
The Argentine pope has made defence of migrants and workers a key plank of his papacy. He has attacked the global economic system for failing to share wealth and chose the tiny southern Italian island of Lampedusa, which many migrants have died trying to reach, as the venue for his first trip as pontiff.
On Tuesday, he called for a Europe that "revolves not around the economy but around the sacredness of the human person".
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"The time has come to promote policies which create employment, but above all there is a need to restore dignity to labour by ensuring proper working conditions," he said.
"This implies, on the one hand, finding new ways of joining market flexibility with the need for stability and security on the part of workers; these are indispensable for their human development," he said.
Unemployment is about 10.1 per cent in the 28-nation European Union and about 11.5 in the 18-nation euro zone. It is more than double that level in Spain and Greece and youth unemployment is more than 40 per cent in some areas.
Francis spoke of Europe's immigration crisis a few days after 600 migrants were rescued in the Mediterranean between Sicily and North Africa.
Read more:
Pope Francis criticises European Union over treatment of migrants
Pope Francis said the European Union risks losing the trust of citizens by ignoring the social costs of the financial crisis.
In the first papal address to the European Parliament since 1988, the year before communisms collapse in eastern Europe, Francis warned about the excesses of free markets.
There are certain rather selfish lifestyles, marked by an opulence which is no longer sustainable and frequently indifferent to the world around us, and especially to the poorest, Francis told the 28-nation EU assembly today in Strasbourg, France. To our dismay, we see technical and economic questions dominating political debate.
The popes remarks coincide with growing EU concerns about the social and political consequences of economic sluggishness. The euro area is seeking to counter the risk of deflation, bolster economic growth and reduce 12 percent unemployment after five years of German-fashioned budget austerity prescribed to overcome the sovereign-debt crisis that threatened to break up the single currency.
The economic malaise has fueled the rise of protest parties across the EU, where a decades-long consensus about the benefits of greater European integration is being challenged. A symbol of this trend is the EU Parliament itself, where euro-skeptic groups boosted their share of seats in elections in May to about 30 percent from 20 percent.
There has been a growing mistrust on the part of citizens toward institutions considered to be aloof, engaged in laying down rules which they perceive as insensitive to individual peoples concerns, if not actually harmful, Francis said. The great ideas which once inspired Europe seem to have lost their power of attraction and been replaced by the bureaucratic technicalities of Europes institutions.
The two biggest parties in the 751-seat EU Parliament remain the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, which are stressing the importance of a 300 billion-euro ($373 billion) investment program that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker intends to unveil tomorrow.
Francis, dubbed The Peoples Pope by Time Magazine for his preaching of humility and defense of the poor, said jobs must be an EU priority.
Its time to promote policies which create employment, he said. Speaking in Italian interpreted into English and other EU languages, the Pope said this implies finding new ways of combining market flexibility and the need for the stability and security of workers.
Francis also weighed into the politically sensitive issue of migration to the EU via the Mediterranean Sea, urging the bloc to forge a united response.
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Pope Warns EU of Voter Disillusionment After Debt Crisis
Rubiks cube, a multicolored puzzle thats kept small and big hands busy since the 1970s, won the right to European Union trademark protection, fending off a challenge from a German toy maker.
The cubes distinctive surface is eligible for the EU-wide right, the EU General Court in Luxembourg ruled today, rejecting claims by Simba Toys GmbH, which argued that it performed a purely technical function.
The black lines and, more generally, the grid structure on each surface of the cube in question do not perform, or are not even suggestive of, any technical function, the EU court said. The EU trademark is granted for three-dimensional puzzles of the same shape with the same grid structure, without blocking other toy makers from creating differently shaped puzzles that rotate in a similar way, the court said.
Hungarian inventor Erno Rubik in 1974 created a solid cube with colored stickers that twisted and turned without falling apart.
Todays ruling is crucial for us because trademark protection is significant for Rubiks cube because the main patent lapsed a few years ago, said Seven Towns, a U.K.-based company that manages the intellectual property rights for the puzzle.
The objective that was not supposed to be possible, according to the official Rubiks website. Rubik himself took one month to work out the solution. There are 43 quintillion ways to align all the sides in an evenly colored manner, according to the website.
A spokeswoman at Simba Toys in Fuerth, Germany, couldnt immediately be reached by phone.
The case is: T-450/09, Simba Toys v. OHMI - Seven Towns (Forme dun cube avec des faces ayant une structure en grille).
To contact the reporter on this story: Stephanie Bodoni in Luxembourg at sbodoni@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net Peter Chapman
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Rubiks Cube Wins Trademark Toy Story at EU Court