This is how Europe can grow

Some of the issues that the European Commission is committed to at this stage include negotiations with the Parliament and the EU Council on the next multi-annual budget, drafting of the “recommendations” to the 27 Member States – scheduled for May 29th – to get their economies in order, and researching new measures to support growth and employment. But in addition to these main commitments, the day-to-day activities of the Commision headed by José Manuel Barroso include legislative initiatives and direct action to create a ‘Europe suitable for citizens, businesses, communities’ in its ordinary political processes and rules.Food safety and human health. Among the packages of measures that the Commission has recently forwarded to the EU Parliament and to the Council, there is one dated May 6th, intended to “modernise, simplify and strengthen the agri-food chain in Europe”. It consists of a series of measures aiming for better controls on the production and the quality of food, controls on plant cultivation and seeds used, and hard and fast rules for animal health. The organization of the production and processing of agricultural products and protecting human and consumer health and safety, are the main prerogatives, as well as checks on the ways in which animal husbandry is carried out. According to Health Commissioner, Maltese official Tonio Borg, “the package responds to the call for better simplification of legislation and smarter regulation thus reducing administrative burden for operators and simplifying the regulatory environment”. The recent horsemeat scandal accelerated the introduction of the legislative package, which is now in the hands of the EU authority – the Parliament and the Council – in a legislative process that could last over two years. Borg said: “The agri-food industry is the second largest economic sector in the EU, employing over 48 million people and is worth some €750 billion a year. In a nutshell, the package aims to provide smarter rules for safer food”.Workers’ rights”.The free movement of workers is a key principle of the EU’s Single Market. With much higher levels of unemployment in some Member States than others at the moment, it is all the more important to make it easier for those that want to work in another EU country to be able to do so”. László Andor, the EU Commissioner for Employment, Hungarian, has taken charge of introducing an initiative designed to “ensure better implementation of EU legislation on the rights of citizens to work in another Member State, in practice facilitating the exercise of their rights”. Around 10 million EU citizens are currently working in another EU country and the Commission holds that “the problem of lack of awareness of the law by employers, both public and private, to protect those who work or would like to work abroad still remains” . This can translate into barriers to the movement of workers or even into real forms of discrimination against EU citizens. There is a need for instance to harmonize different conditions of employment, nationality requirements for access to certain jobs, working conditions, access to pensions or social security.The “month of the brain”. Finally, The Commission launched the “European Month of the brain” a few days ago: in this context, 50 events will be taking place in the EU throughout the month of May designed to illustrate the problems related to mental disorders and diseases, and “highlighting research and innovation in the area of neuroscience, cognition and related areas”. Likewise, the European Commission has earmarked some €150 million of funding for 20 new international brain research projects. It will bring the total EU investment in brain research since 2007 to over €1.9 billion”.Some 165 million Europeans are likely to experience some form of brain related diseases during their life,” explains Commissioner for Research, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, from Ireland”.As the population ages, with more people affected by Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative or age-related mental disorders, treatment costs are likely to go up sharply”, hence the urgent need to “find better ways of preventing and treating brain diseases”. Brain-related disorders and diseases “are likely to affect many European citizens during their lifetime. Treating those affected is already costing us €1.5 million every minute and this burden on our healthcare systems is likely to rise as our population ages”.Brain research could help”, according to the Commissioner, “to alleviate the suffering of millions of patients and those that care for them”.