EU Digital Library Launched

This is some good news – the EU Bookshop Digital Library is launched. It provides free access to 12 million scanned pages in more than 110 000 EU publications.

My Blog on Climate Change

I now participate in TH!NK2 Climate Change – a 3 month blogging competition with a focus on UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) in December 2009.

You can check my posts on this topic here.

The Unfinished Business of the Fifth Enlargement

There is a new comparative report by the European Policies Initiative under the project “The Unfinished Business of the Fifth Enlargement”.

The report finds that the “unfinished business” in the new member states from Eastern Europe concerns mainly the policy areas of national competence (political systems, social, educational, health reforms and sustainable economic development) that have been relatively neglected by decision-makers in the pre-accession period for the sake of the accession agenda.

The report further claims that the deficiencies in the political domain have predetermined a framework of very fragile political systems where fragmented political parties with short-term political lives are unable to commit to long-term and consistent reforms.

An interesting claim is that the membership leverage is very limited with regard to its impact on the “unfinished business” of the transition agenda in the post accession period. In this sense the only potentially effective membership leverage on the NMS can be the Euro area accession.

Green Paper on Learning Mobility

The European Commission has published a Green Paper on “Promoting the learning mobility of young people”. With this Green Paper the Commission launches a public consultation which will be open until 15 December 2009.

Different issues – like the organization of mobility, exchanges with non-EU countries, cross-sector mobility, virtual mobility, are open for discussion.

Index of Child Wellbeing in Europe

A new publication by the Child Poverty Action Group shows the relative standing of EU Member States plus Norway and Iceland regarding child wellbeing.

‘Wellbeing’ describes the quality of childhoods as they are lived. Wellbeing draws in the many different factors which affect children’s lives: including material conditions; housing and neighbourhoods; how children feel and do at school; their health; exposure to dangerous risks; and the quality of family and classmate relationships children develop.

The frontrunners are Netherlands, Sweden and Norway. Bulgaria is 26th, but there is some missing data for some of the indicators.

New Website on Social Integration

There is a new website providing information, documents, best practices and links on the social integration of citizens. All dimensions of integration are covered – from active citizenship to economic participation, from social cohesion to anti-discrimination.

This is a valuable resource indeed.

Knowledge4Innovation: EU Loses Billions in Duplicating Existing Research

Roland Strauss, executive director of Knowledge4Innovation, has told EurActiv in an interview that “billions of euro could be saved if knowledge that is already available was not created a second or third time”.

According to Strauss there are two opportunities to fight that: one is to use existing information that can come from patent offices, from sleeping pattens and, on the other side, better communication among research actors themselves. He says knowledge and innovation communities will be an important factor in determining EU research and innovation priorities.

The General Report on the EU’s Activities in 2008 is Now Available

The Commission has published the General Report on the activities of the European Union in 2008. The General Report covers the work of all the EU institutions and bodies and seeks to provide an overview of the notable events and key trends of EU life in 2008.

Study on Preliminary Education

The Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency of the EU has published the report “Tackling Social and Cultural Inequalities through Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe”. The report includes a review of scientific literature on the impact of high quality education and care on young children, statistical data on relevant demographic characteristics, and a comparative analysis of policy measures.

According to the report, the most effective intervention programmes involve intensive, early starting, childfocused, centre-based education together with strong parent involvement, parent education,
programmed educational home activities and measures of family support.

The report finds that:

• Many countries do not even have any central recommendations or guidelines regarding curricula for the youngest children;
• The problem of access to early child education and care has been virtually solved throughout Europe for 5-year-olds, but this is certainly not the case for the 0-3 age group, or even for 4-year-olds in some countries;
• Home-based education, even when providing parental support, is usually not enough to close the educational gap.

Larger Budget for Erasmus Mundus

The second phase of the Erasmus Mundus program will provide more support with grants to the talented students and professors from countries outside the EU to take part in joint programmes in Europe. The program will also expand to the doctoral level and give more financial support for mobility to European students.

The new budget for the period 2009 to 2013 is 950 million Euro.