NATO Secretary General Doorstep Statement - European Union Foreign Affairs Council - Luxembourg
Doorstep statement by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the meeting of the European Union Foreign Affairs Council at the level of Defence Minis...
By: NATO
European Union: 500 Million Consumers, 28 Countries and One Single Market
Last year the Single Market celebrated its 20th anniversary, that #39;s 20 years of the free movement of goods, people, services and capital within the European ...
By: HOTELIER TV
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European Union: 500 Million Consumers, 28 Countries and One Single Market - Video
STRASBOURG, France The European Parliament on Tuesday gave its final approval to an array of rules aimed at mending the European Union's troubled financial sector and winding down banks while sparing taxpayer money.
In their final week before breaking up ahead of elections in May, lawmakers voted through previously agreed legislations designed to place the cost of closing a failing bank on the shoulders of its investors, and a new authority that will oversee the winding down of broken eurozone lenders.
Lawmakers also approved new harmonized rules for national deposit-guarantee funds, which are meant to protect savings during a bank failure.
"We have turned the idea of a banking union into reality in less than two years," said Internal Markets Commissioner Michel Barnier. "The banking union completes the economic and monetary union and ensures taxpayers will no longer foot the bill when banks face difficulties."
Eurozone leaders promised to construct a so-called banking union at the height of the currency union's debt crisis in June 2012, pledging to break the toxic link between weak banks and government finances. In addition to the laws passed Tuesday, the banking union also includes a single supervisor for eurozone banks under the auspices of the European Central Bank.
The European Union has deployed an Election Observation Mission (EOM) to Malawi, in response to an invitation by the countrys Electoral Commission.
This is the third time that the European Union is observing elections in Malawi (previously in 2004 and 2009), which reflects the EUs long term commitment to supporting credible, transparent and inclusive elections in the country, noted an EU statement on Wednesday.
The EOM will be tasked with observing the presidential, parliamentary and local elections scheduled on May 20.
EU High Representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Catherine Ashton, appointed Veronique De Keyser, Member of the European Parliament, as Chief Observer for this EOM.
A core team of seven EU election analysts arrived in Malawi on 12 April; it will be joined by 28 long-term observers on April 23 and 24 short-term observers on May 14.
The EOM will liaise with other international observation missions such as the African Union and will issue a preliminary statement shortly after election day, and a final report a few weeks later after final results are published.
Meanwhile, 10 -member African Union (AU) long-term observers (LTOs) are in the country to carry out a comprehensive observation of the election process until the day the final results are announced.
Briefing journalists in Lilongwe Monday evening, AU Ambassador to Malawi and Regional Delegate to Southern Africa, Salif Sada Sall, said the observers were in the country at the invitation of the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) and that they were drawn from representative countries of the continents blocs of SADC, ECOWAS and AEC.
Sall addresses journalists on the LTOs mission
The African Union LTOs are from Kenya, Zambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Lesotho and Namibia and they will carry out a comprehensive observation of the whole process in all parts of Malawi, explained Sall.
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EU deploys elections monitoring mission to Malawi: AU observer mission in
By PRW Staff
Posted 17 April 2014
European Union (EU) countries could have to reduce the use of plastic carrier bags by at least 80% by 2019 under draft rules backed by the European Parliament yesterday (16 April). MEPs recommend using taxes and levies, marketing restrictions or bans.
"MEPs have voted to significantly strengthen draft EU rules aimed at reducing plastic bag use and waste, notably to include obligatory European reduction targets and a requirement that plastic bags come at a cost," said Danish MEP, Margrete Auken, whose report was approved by 539 votes to 51, with 72 abstentions.
As front-running countries have demonstrated, dramatically reducing the consumption of these disposable bags is easily achievable with coherent policy. Swiftly phasing out these bags is a readily implementable solution to the pervasive problem of plastic waste in the environment.
MEPs agreed that lightweight plastic bags thinner than 50 microns the vast majority of plastic carrier bags used in the EU are less reusable than thicker models and become waste more quickly.
The proposed plans will be presented to the European Parliament following next months elections and if passed into law would ensure that member states would have to at least halve their consumption by 2017 and reduce it by 80% two years later compared with 2010 figures.
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MEPs vote for draft bag ban legislation