On Thursday, after two years, the European leaders finally reached a deal on the new ‘Reform Treaty’.
Now all we need is the ratification, pretty difficult, since the governments in several member countries are pressured to organize a referendum on the revised text.

Some key provisions of the new treaty are:

* A full-time Council president, for a two and a half year, renewable term.
* A clearer, fairer and more transparent voting system based on the “double majority” system.
* A smaller Commission capped at two-thirds the number of member states from 2014.
* A stronger foreign policy representative, creating the post of High Representative for Foreign Policy by merging the roles of the Council High Representative and the commissioner for external action.
* An extension of majority voting to 50 new areas, most of them minor, and most notably concerning cooperation on fighting terrorism, crime and immigration.
* The Charter of Fundamental Rights will become legally binding, though only on European legislation.
* A stronger role for national parliaments, who now have the right to challenge European legislation that they consider unnecessary.

Is seems that President Nicolas Sarkozy - France and Prime Minister Gordon Brown - Great Britain are backing Tony Blair to be the first to fill European Union presidency.

(Should I comment the picture? Or not? …not this time :D)

N.B. I was asked why I want a referendum in Romania - everybody knows that the result will be certainly a very clear “yes”. Because the Romanians will finally have the chance to talk and debate on European issues. I don’t think they will be wasted money.

Yesterday, the European Court of Justice rejected the appeal of a Spanish manager, Félix Palacios de la Villa, who took his company, Cortefiel Servicios SA, to court when he was notified of his pension two years ago, claiming that this was against the European principle of non-discrimination on grounds of age.

But, by reaching above mentioned verdict, the 13 in Luxembourg are backing the mandatory retirement age, stating that this issue should be in accordance with the labour legislation in each member state, saying that even though discrimination based on age was illegal, the compulsory retirement age for employees can be justified to stabilize the labour markets and if proper pension is provided, which is compatible with the European law.

If the court had ruled otherwise, challenging the pension system, it would have caused difficulties in social and economic policies throughout all the 27 EU countries, since the goal of mandatory pension schemes is to free up jobs for younger people, helping to improve economic growth, reduce unemployment and pay for the demands of an aging population.

On the other hand, the present EU trend is, besides combating age discrimination on the job, to encourage older people to work longer, to finance their retirements. The gap between young and older employees is particularly acute in Eastern Europe, where young, educated and skilled citizens are moving in Western countries for higher wages, leaving an aging labour-force behind.

In conclusion, as I was saying yesterday , the main demographic/ human capital policy problem is not the mandatory age retirement, but the early retirement, widespread all over Europe, event though there are several groups that challenge the compulsory retirement at a certain age.

I know, I don’t like it either. Due to the working conditions in Romania, I would love to retire at age of 50-55, but I realize this will not be possible for many generations.

The European Union and Bulgaria are arguing about how to spell the word euro.
The problem lies with Bulgaria’s Cyrillic alphabet (the third alphabet in EU, after the Latin and the Greek ones), under which the common European currency is spelt “evro” rather than euro.
This discussion threatens to block the signing of an EU accord with Balkan state Montenegro. Bulgarian diplomats said they could only sign the document if euro is spelt correctly in the Bulgarian version of the agreement:

“This is part of our national identity. We brought the third alphabet into the European Union and it’s a matter of respect for linguistic diversity,”

Bulgaria is presently the only EU member to widely use the Cyrillic alphabet but it is also used in Balkan countries that are lining up to join the EU.
Other countries where the euro is pronounced differently, including Slovenia, have tried to obtain a different spelling of the common currency, but they have failed. Except for Greece.

Unlike Slovenia which uses the Latin alphabet, Greece had put forward its different alphabet as an argument - something that Bulgarians are trying to do as well.

The European Central Bank insists that the name of the common currency must be the same in all the official languages of the EU. On the other hand, the existence of different alphabets should be taken into account - opinion also supported by Multilingualism Commissioner, Leonad Orban.

Of course, for some it looks like a minor and ridiculous matter, but Bulgaria brings the same arguments as Greece. Why “yes” for Greece and “no” for Bulgaria?

… the European Commission’s antitrust department. The EU court dismisses Microsoft appeal.
Just this round … no doubt that Microsoft will appeal the decision to the European Court of Justice.

This decision will have very strong echoes in all software industry, because, as the Microsoft lawyers previously said:

The outcome of this case is critical not only for Microsoft, but for future innovation in our industry. Companies need to have confidence they won’t be forced to hand over their valuable intellectual property to their competitors. In addition, companies need to have confidence they can develop new products with the features their customers want.

So, Apple, Google, Intel etc. have reasons to worry, too. Let’s not forget that the US Government lobbied competition commissioner Neelie Kroes over Microsoft fine. Will they try again?

Today The European Court of First Instance will give its verdict on the appeal case against the EU executive’s antitrust decision to fine Microsoft.
We are talking about a nearly half-a-billion euros fine, and (till now) a nine year legal battle.

At their first meeting after the summer recess, European lawmakers have kicked off a highly political debate about how seats for MEPs should be distributed between 27 EU states.
On 3rd of September, French conservative Alain Lamassoure and Romanian socialist Adrian Severin presented to the European parliament’s constitutional affairs committee their report on the future composition of the 785-strong legislative house.

The two parliamentarians suggested three main rules:

a) The total number of deputies should be limited to 750 (there are currently 785),
b) the ceiling for a national delegation would be decreased from 99 to 96 seats
c) the minimum threshold would rise from five to six seats.

These rules would slightly reduce the weight of some countries, while other will gain one or few extra seats.
The Lamassoure-Severin report argues against reserving at this point any seats for EU-hopeful countries (Croatia).
Within the three main limits, the seats would be shared on the basis of “degressive proportionality” principle, which the two MEPs’ report describes as an “ideal solution”.
The principle suggests that “the bigger the population of a member state, the higher must be the number of citizens each MEP represents” (and vice versa), but this advantage will be reduced with the number of the citizens.
A new system of the seats redistribution should enter into force with the next parliamentary elections in 2009, but Mr Lamassoure has predicted the talks will generate “a lot of passion and emotion”.

In case of failure of this project, the present rules would be automatically modified in 2009 in such a way that the total number of deputies would fall to 736. Only Germany, Slovenia, Estonia, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta would maintain their current numbers. The rest of the member states would lose several seats.

(Good to know that a Romanian MEP is so actively involved in EU lawmaking)

Once again the citizens of EU will pay with their fundamental rights the price for so-called war against terrorism. The East-European nations have seen this before –in the name of the national security a lot of stupid and dangerous rules are implemented, and when the people will finally realize that the authorities went too far, it will be probably too late for an amiable solution.
So, according to the new EU-USA agreement, our private information will be held by American authorities for 15 years (so they say; let me see: after 15 years what really happens?).
Many European states have expressed their concern on this matter, The European Court of Justice rejected the first issue of the agreement ….so what?!
Is it me or the situations in which the European authorities don’t bother to take into account the opinions of the member states are more frequent every day? – they just give another form to the agreement (with almost the same result) and get what they want.
The fact that the same strategy is used for the European Constitution (not any more called ‘Constitution’, but in many respects still with a similar legal value), that the referendum is avoided (let’s be serious: if not for this kind of treaty, than for what on Earth does the referendum even exist?!) should be a very serious signal for European citizens. The fact that European Institutions are going too far will probably cause many anti-integration movements, and I don’t think European Union is ready for a civil crisis. Somebody is playing with fire.

Odata cu inceperea noului ‘cincinal’ (de fapt, sunt sapte ani: 2007-2013, si bine ar fi fost daca si autoritatile noastre ar fi avut planuri strategice clare pe aceeasi perioada), Uniunea Europeana a decis si aplicarea unui nou set de reguli de accesare a fondurilor europene, reguli care vor furniza solutii mai practice si mai simple celor care lucreaza cu astfel de fonduri, precum si un control mai eficient al utilizarii lor.
Gasiti aceste reguli destul de bine explicate aici (dati click) iar tipurile de fonduri sunt detaliate pe domenii si politici UE pe site-ul Comisiei Europene. .

Voi mai reveni cu detalii privind fondurile europene, cu alta ocazie.