Latest News

Dutch-led renewable energy venture sets standard
3/8/2010 1:00:00 AM
Dutch authorities were initially sceptical about funding the Minewater project, but with strong local support this unusual renewable energy initiative succeeded in securing EU regional money and went on to become a blueprint for similar models elsewhere in Europe.

German Town Looking for Pothole Sponsors
3/5/2010 1:00:00 AM
They cause accidents and they blight the streets -- extreme winter weather has resulted in a rash of potholes across Europe. With a shortage of cash to fix them, one German town has come up with a unique solution: selling sponsorships, complete with a plaque. The snow has finally melted in most of Europe. But what it has left behind is not entirely to the liking of most. In Berlin, for example, the vanished drifts have revealed mountains of charred waste from fireworks still left over from New Year's. Weeks worth of newly thawed out dog dirt has likewise made walks in the city a chore.

Prague outranks Paris and Stockholm among EU's richest regions
3/4/2010 1:00:00 AM
Prague outranked Paris, Stockholm and Vienna in a list of the EU's richest regions published on Thursday (18 February) by Eurostat, the bloc's statistics office. The chart is however based on 2007 data, at the height of an economic boom in the central European state. Prague ranked fifth among Europe's 271 regions in terms of gross domestic product per inhabitant, up from the 12th place last year. It is the only region from the new member states to feature in the upper ranks of EU's richest areas.

Spanish unemployment up again
3/3/2010 1:00:00 AM
Spain's job centres got busier in February. The number of people registered as jobless increased by more than 82,000, the seventh consecutive monthly rise. The total is now just over 4.1 million. The Madrid government pointed out the rise was significantly less than the same month last year, when the economic crisis was at its worst.

Europe must not shirk its social responsibilities
3/2/2010 1:00:00 AM
"The CoR calls for additional resources to enable the regions and municipalities to address social exclusion". Facing the social consequences of the economic crisis in their regions and cities, the members of the CoR's ECOS commission yesterday launched a debate on what can be done by the EU, Member States and local and regional authorities to combat insecurity. Using its treaty-given right of initiative, the Committee of the Regions is therefore placing discussion of the social consequences of the economic crisis on the European Union's agenda.