Transports, a plan for neighbouring countriesThe European Commission has published a new “Neighbourhood Transport Action Plan to strengthen transport links with neighbouring regions to the East and South of the EU”. The plan proposes more than 20 concrete measures, “in the short and longer term, to make transport connections smoother, safer and more reliable”. The Vice-President of the Executive Siim Kallas, declared: “Freedom of movement is something we all tend to take for granted in Europe, but it shouldn’t stop at the border. Today if we are serious about a relationship with our neighbours we need to provide the infrastructure which is essential for flows of goods and people across borders and cut away the bureaucracy and bottlenecks”. The Action Plan is addressed to numerous countries. These are: to the East, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldavia and Ukraine; to the south: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestinian Territories, Syria, Tunisia; the candidate countries: Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Turkey. Potential candidates: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo. Transport cooperation with the EU’s neighbouring regions has so far taken place under a number of bilateral and regional initiatives. Key measures for connecting the transport systems of the EU and its neighbours include: extending the EU’s internal aviation market and Single European Sky to neighbouring regions; joining up the Trans-European Transport Network with infrastructure of the EU’s neighbours through priority transport projects; making better use of rail freight potential; making sea transport with the neighbouring countries more efficient, helping neighbouring countries to improve road safety. The Commission’s plan will next be presented to the Council and the European Parliament. The project will be launched at a ministerial conference organized under the Polish EU Presidency (24-25 October 2011 in Krakow).Drug increase: strengthen rules”5% of young Europeans say they have used the new synthetic drugs”, “which imitate the effects of dangerous drugs like ecstasy or cocaine and are sold legally”. These are the findings of a survey carried out by Eurobarometer published on July 11 along with a report by the Commission that indicates the need for “tougher action across the European Union” to tackle the growing problem of new synthetic drugs entering the market. “The EU indentified a record number of 41 such psychoactive substances in 2010, up from 24 the previous year – states the Executive -. The drugs, which can be just as dangerous as banned substances, are often sold over the Internet and in specialist shops”. The report assesses the current EU rules on tackling new psychoactive drugs so as to strengthen said rules to prevent such unsafe substances from being sold freely on the market. “New synthetic drugs are becoming widely available at an unprecedented pace in Europe. They can be toxic, addictive and have long-term adverse effects”, said Vice-President Viviane Reding. “We need to act at EU level and protect our children. The current system of detecting these new drugs is not fit to tackle the large increase in the number of these substances” on the market. The figures are the highest in Ireland (16%), followed by Poland (9%), Latvia (9%), the UK (8%) and Luxembourg (7%). 57% of respondents believe they could easily obtain cannabis within 24 hours, while only 22% said the same for ecstasy or cocaine”. Indeed, the Eurobarometer survey reveals that across all 27 EU Member States, a large majority of 15 to 24 year-olds are in favour of banning these substances.Mediator: the first two rights”72% of European citizens stated that they do not feel well informed about the Charter of Fundamental Rights”. The figure emerged in a survey by Eurobarometer commissioned by the European Ombudsman Nikiforos Diamandouros, to “establish to what extent European citizens are informed on the Charter”, which the Lisbon Treaty made legally binding, “as well as the importance they ascribe to their own rights”. The Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Lisbon Treaty have “strengthened the role of the European citizens vis-à-vis the EU administration”. They provide for “a stronger involvement of citizens in EU decision-making and “introduce the right to good administration”. The survey (carried out in EU27 on a sample of almost 27thousand citizens) states: “For almost 50% of respondents the right to move and reside freely in the European Union is the most important citizens’ right. The second most important right is the right to good administration by the EU institutions, followed by the right to lodge complaints with the European Ombudsman”. According to the Eurobarometer survey “the level of satisfaction of the EU institutions is low also when it comes to effectiveness, service-mindedness and transparency”.
