Brussels, 01 December 2011

Consumers should be at the core of discussions on the future competitiveness and sustainable growth of the European automotive industry. But the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) – a consumer body representing 104 Touring and Motoring Clubs as well as 36 million members from its Brussels office -  believes the current CARS 21 process must do more to meet consumer expectations. The High Level Group was meeting today to adopt an interim report.

After nearly 40 years of stalemate, the European Union is on the brink of approving a unitary patent regime that aims to simplify costs, cut red-tape and enhance competitiveness for EU businesses.

Due to linguistic dispute over the decision to focus on translation into only three community languages (EN, FR, DE), Italy and Spain are not participating so the measures are being introduced by the 'enhanced cooperation' procedure involving the other 25 Member States.

Brussels 5 December 2011: The European Association of Communications Agencies has launched the call for entries for the EACA Care Awards 2012. These Awards for European Social Marketing Campaigns recognise excellence in promoting care for people, resources and the environment. They are part of the EACA’s overall commitment to promote Corporate Social Responsibility and are linked to the ACT Responsible online gallery and the ACT Responsible World Tour.

Guy Verhofstadt, President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Group in the European Parliament made the following statement on the occasion of the elections to the Russian State Duma of 4 December 2011:

Restricting hydration-related claims to water only ignores EFSA advice and breaches European law

Brussels, 5 December 2011 - The Commission’s proposal to restrict the use of the water/hydration claims to water only would mark a move away from science-based policy-making and ignore the EFSA recommendation.