Roaming charges for using mobile phones within EU countries have been reduced in time for the travel season. In particular the cap on data roaming charges has seen a significant fall.

Last week, the EU employment ministers came together for one of their regular meetings in Luxemburg. On their agenda were among other the country specific recommendations, which the EU Commission had recently made to the EU Member States. In the original version, the Commission recommends to Austria to link the legal retirement age to life expectancy. A demand, which has been clearly rejected by the employees' side.

Even though Italy only assumes the rotating EU Council Presidency for the next six months from 1 July 2014, the programme and thereby Italy’s priorities and activities have already been leaked. Strictly speaking, it will be an 18 month programme, as it includes the future presidencies of Italy, Latvia and Luxemburg.

As already reported in our Newsletter on several occasions, the European Commission has launched a public consultation on ISDS. However, the questionnaire is so complicated that one has to ask oneself the question whether the Commission is really interested in a broad participation of the civil population. Help is now at hand with an online tool developed by AK EUROPE, the European Office of the Austrian Trade Union Federation ÖGB and Friends of the Earth Europe, which enables participation with a few simple mouse clicks.

Currently, about 5.6 million young Europeans are unemployed. The EU wanted to provide help swiftly and agreed on a Youth Guarantee based on which in future every unemployed young person should be provided with a job, an apprenticeship or at least work experience within four months at the latest. Since 2013, six billion euros have been available for Europe’s youth. However, the majority of this money has yet to be collected. The problem: anybody wanting subsidies must first agree with the EU Commission on a programme of measures.

As already reported in the AK EUROPA Newsletter, the European Commission has launched a public online consultation in respect of the controversial “Investor-state dispute settlement” (ISDS) within the scope of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Privileged right of action for foreign investors and regulatory restriction for states would be the consequence.

The campaign “Politics for People” for lobby transparency at EU level, organised by ALTER-EU, AK & ÖGB and supported by a broad alliance of trade unions and civil society organisations from all over Europe was launched at the beginning of April. The candidates for the European elections were asked to pledge that they, in case they were elected to the European Parliament, would stand up for citizens and democracy and against the excessive lobby influence of banks and big business in Europe!

This week, a Conference on Mobilising Social Policy Innovations, which had been organised by the EU Commission, took place in Brussels, whereby participants particular focussed on the question how one could, based on innovations, contribute to the goal of achieving a higher level of economic and social benefit by adopting social policy reforms.

This week, the EU Commission presented a new global university ranking system, based on which over 850 universities all over the world can be evaluated. This new system provides access to far more indictors than before. Also interesting is the fact that users can compile a personal ranking based on their individual requirements.

Due to broad resistance, in particular by labour representatives, civil society and NGOs, the European Commission has initiated a public consultation on the international investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). The objective of the consultation is to provide all (EU citizens and organisations) with the opportunity to let the European Commission know their opinion on ISDS.