Innovation: winners and losers” “

The “European Innovation Scoreboard”, a kind of chart table assessing the degree of innovation in Europe, an initiative of the European Commission’s Innovation Policy Development Unit, is now in its fifth year. It calculates the degree of innovation and future tendencies by assessing the data collected country by country on the basis of five indicators: […]

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New funds for agricultural promotion” “

The European Commission has approved 25 programmes, presented by fourteen member states (Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Hungary, Austria, Holland, Poland, Sweden, Finland and the United Kingdom), aimed at contributing to information and promotion relating to European agricultural products: the total of the EU co-financing has been increased to 25.5 million euros. The […]

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Lisbon Strategy and local authorities” “

The Committee of the Regions (COR) of the European Union (www.cor.eu.int) has published the results of a survey conducted in the 103 regional and local Authorities represented within the COR and in 16 national organizations. The survey findings clearly express the general dissatisfaction of European Regions and Cities about the minimum role played by them […]

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Tax regime for businesses” “

The European Commission adopted a Communication last week with the objective of contributing to the definition of a clear and definitive tax regime for small and medium European businesses that conduct trans-national activities. The Executive – at the request both of employers’ associations and of the competent national authorities – proposes the principle of so-called […]

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MIGRATION" "

Building together” “

Appeals to solidarity among nations, to responsibility, to respect for the dignity of the migrant as a human person: these are some of the positions expressed by the Churches of the European countries bordering the Mediterranean on the occasion of the 92nd World Day of the Migrant and the Refugee celebrated throughout the world on […]

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england" "

More priests, less communities?” “

There is a counter-tendency in progress as far as vocations are concerned in the Catholic Church of England and Wales. Vocations have grown over the last four years. The reasons for this upswing, according to the national vocations office, are to be sought in a better information campaign that makes aspirants to the priesthood more […]

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austria" "

Return to the family” “

A significant drop in the number of apostasies and a growth in those who return to the Church: that is the encouraging finding of the latest statistics on the Austrian Catholic Church. The Church statistics relating to 2005, subdivided by dioceses, were published on 10 January. They reveal a trend more or less common to […]

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France: 150th anniversary of Society of African Missions” “

The 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Society of African Missions (SAM) is being celebrated in 2006. The SAM was founded in Lyon (France), in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fourvière, on 8 December 1856, thanks to Bishop de Marion Brésillac who joined with a group of others in “consecrating themselves to the […]

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Germany: number of asylum seekers falling” “

In Germany, the number of asylum seekers has dropped to its lowest recorded level in recent years: 29,000 immigrants applied for asylum in 2005. This is the lowest number on record, combined with a further drop in the number of asylum applications accepted by Germany: only 411 last year. According to Caritas of the diocese […]

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Scotland: card. O’Brien among the refugees of the Darfur” “

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, began a twelve-day visit to Sudan on Monday, 16 January. The main aim of the trip is to visit the refugee camps in which some three million displaced people are living in the war-torn Darfur region of the country: a region where the local population has […]

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