European Union regulators have taken their first step to making good on their recent threat to take “repressive action” against Google by summer. Following last month’s final meeting between Google and European ...

Cyprus has been forced to apply a levy on ordinary bank deposits of the type that fall under the €100,000 deposit guarantee that is required by a European Directive. This is an upper limit for guarantees, taking away ...

New EU passenger rights will allow airlines more time to repair or call in new aircraft before having to pay out compensation. The rules, proposed by the European Commission on Wednesday (13 March), would extend the ...

Europe's horse meat scandal has widened to affect several member states, with Romania emerging as the possible source. Britain first discovered the presence of horse meat in what were supposed to be beef burgers in late ...

A leading critic of Malta's would-be EU commissioner has said he will back him after his answers on gay rights at a European Parliament hearing. British centre-left MEP Michael Cashman - who co-chairs parliament's gay ...

Conflicts of interest in four EU agencies authorising food, medicines, chemicals and aviation security standards might be putting people's safety at risk, an audit has shown. "None of the four agencies under review ...

Denmark is fronting an EU initiative to help consumers boycott Israeli settlement products. Its foreign ministry is funding an event in Brussels on 23 October to get EU diplomats and NGOs, such as Oxfam and Crisis ...

The United Nation's agency for Food and Agriculture (FAO) says the recent spike in the price of maize and soja is causing problems for the EU's animal feed sector. "We already see that the prices of the feed sector is ...

Plans for tighter EU rules on Internet service providers have been pushed back to 2013 after the European Commission this week launched a public consultation lasting until mid-October. The EU executive is seeking ...

Plans to re-write EU rules on music copyright have received a cool reception by artists and collecting societies, with groups criticising the narrow focus of the proposal and insisting that it will leave most existing ...

The EU has taken a swipe at organisations responsible for collecting up to €6 billion a year in artists' royalties. Single market commissioner Michael Barnier in Brussels on Wednesday (11 July) unveiled draft new laws ...

Music is everywhere, and the digital age has only increased its presence. Today, (11 July) I am proposing a modernised system of collective rights management that will use the single market – the EU's most powerful ...

Companies using cloud computing services must "guarantee" compliance with EU data rules, according to the Article 29 Working group, the EU's leading data protection watchdog. In a 27-page legal opinion released this ...

The European Commission has the right to claim damages resulting from its own ruling on a lift and escalator cartel, according to a legal opinion issued on Tuesday (26 June). The case, which marks the first time that ...

The EU is set to miss targets for its digital agenda programme, according to a report released this week by the European Commission. Earlier this week (18 June) the commission published its second annual Digital Agenda ...

EU data protection chief Peter Hustinx has warned governments not to water down new rules on data protection by excluding police and law authorities from the scope saying that such steps would be "inappropriate." The EU ...

The European Commission has promised to re-write EU legislation on medical devices to avoid a repeat of the breast implant scandal involving now defunct French-firm Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) which emerged last year. ...

The EU is moving towards a system of common copyright rules after a deal on so-called "orphan works" was reached by MEPs and ministers on Wednesday (6 June). "Orphan works" include photos, films or pieces of writing ...

Digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes is to draft legislation on 'net neutrality' following data that between 20 and 50 percent of European Internet providers use software to block online access. In a press statement ...

Swedish Pirate party MEP Christian Engstrom has little interest in economics or foreign affairs. The former computer engineer is concentrating his energy on stopping the EU parliament from adopting the Acta treaty on ...

The European Commission has put reforming the continent's digital market at the heart of a drive to improve consumer rights, amid concerns about the efficiency of the online single market. The proposal forms part of a ...

Negotiators remain far apart on new rules to govern which internal EU documents can be released for public scrutiny. Jakob Alvi, the Danish EU presidency spokesman, told EUobserver on Tuesday (22 May) that member states ...

The European Commission has given Google “a matter of weeks” to propose a “remedies package” in order to avoid formal legal proceedings and possible fines over allegations that the online search giant is abusing its ...

The economic crisis has shaken citizens' trust in EU institutions, says Ombudsman Nikiforos Diamandouros, who recently hosted a conference designed to give citizens access to the Union's key decision-makers. An Athens ...

The European Commission has threatened to table a comprehensive set of child internet safety rules if the software industry fails to self-regulate to protect children online. Unveiling its "European strategy for a ...

A top scientist within the EU agency authorising new drugs resigned on Wednesday (4 April) after being fired from France's national regulator, itself embroiled in scandals over poisonous diabetes drugs and failing ...

EU commission Vice-President Viviane Reding on Wednesday (28 March) urged MEPs to back her proposals to overhaul the EU Data Protection law, saying that citizens and businesses "can't wait two years for adoption." ...

The ongoing Acta furore has ensured that even average Europeans are now familiar with this "notorious" intellectual property treaty. The uproar has focused on Acta's presumed legislative impact on the rights of average ...

E-health is already the third largest sector in the healthcare industry after pharmaceuticals and medical devices. With new technology fundamentally changing doctor-patient relations and posing new questions on privacy, ...

Doctors, it is said, are not exactly what might be called early adopters of new technologies. It took them almost a generation to get used to the stethoscope after it was invented in the early 19th century. Today, they ...

The European Commission intends to propose collective copyright legislation that could lead to BSkyB and other digital TV giants being forced to make their programmes available to viewers across the EU. In a ...

Europe is lagging behind on potentially massive economic benefits from online retail markets, the European Commission has warned. It said removing obstacles that hinder online trade and drive up fees could save EU ...

EU institutions and national authorities have refused to disclose the names of online credit companies which mislead customers, despite raising alarm about widespread abuses in the sector. Two-thirds out of 242 European ...

After walking for two and a half months, about 300 "indignados" arrived in Brussels this weekend to lobby the European institutions and protest against unemployment and welfare cuts. Although the original plan was for ...

At a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Luxembourg, eurogroup chief Jean Claude Juncker said no eurozone member was advocating a Greek default. But finance ministers decided to postpone the transfer of the next ...

Certain Belgian employees receive up to €250 worth a year in eco-cheques. They are designed to promote ecological buying by enticing people to buy bio products. They are also a way for employers to survive the ...

"The European Commission should put anti-corruption on the security agenda", says staunch anti-corruption fighter Monica Macovei. The Member of European Parliament from the EPP group has been trying to encourage the EU ...

The relationship between Europeans and their food is growing in complexity, governed by cultural, social and economic factors and influenced ever more by unpredictable weather patterns and the rising middle class in ...

Although Belgians are not too proud of the fact that they have beaten the world record for length of time without a national government, they are delighted to be internationally renowned for their beer. Once a year, ...

Fisheries policy has never been the type of issue that lives in the spotlight. Yet we now find ourselves at a time when what is at stake with the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is nothing short of the ...

Next month one of the most ferociously contested EU laws in Brussels’ history is expected to be given the final nod by member states. The quest to change food labelling rules so that consumers can easily tell whether a ...

After a summer of market turmoil, MEPs touched base with some of the key players in solving the Euro zone sovereign debt crisis this week, President of the Euro group Jean-Claude Juncker, Minister of Finance of Poland ...