EFTA Bulletin (Switzerland) articles from November 2002

EFTA Bulletin (Switzerland) archives from November 2002

Foreword.(Editorial)
November 1, 2002... Occasionally, the media in Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway report that a company has successfully secured "financial support from the EU", or they bring the story of a school class fresh from a visit to the EU, happy to have made new friends...

1. Participation in EU programmes, services and agencies.
November 1, 2002... The Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA) unites the 15 EU Member States and the three EFTA EEA States (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) into one internal market governed by the same basic rules, or legislation. These rules cover the...

Background and overview.(Programmes And Actions)
November 1, 2002... Article 78 of the EEA Agreement calls for the EU and the EEA EFTA States to strengthen and broaden their cooperation in the framework of the Community's activities outside the four freedoms. Ten fields are mentioned specifically: *...

Research and technological development.(Programmes And Actions)
November 1, 2002... Community activity in research was originally limited to the interest of the Agricultural policy, Euratom and the Coal and Steel Community, which together set up a Joint Research Centre (JRC) in 1957. Challenged by rapid technological advances...

Information services and security of information systems.(Programmes And Actions)
November 1, 2002... The move by Europe, and many other parts of the world, from predominantly industrial societies into the information society is also reflected in recent EU policy initiatives, in particular the e-Europe Action Plan, adopted by the European...

Environment.(Programmes And Actions)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... Two EU initiatives for cooperation on specific environmental issues have been incorporated into the EEA Agreement. The first of these, Community framework for cooperation in the field of accidental or deliberate marine pollution (2001-2006), is...

Education, training and youth.(Programmes And Actions)
November 1, 2002... The first Community activities in the field of education were initiated in 1976, when education ministers in the European Community decided to set up an information network, Eurydice, as a basis for a better understanding of educational...

Social policy.(Programmes And Actions)
November 1, 2002... The Daphne Programme (2000-2003) is a Community preventive action programme to fight violence against children, young people and women, and is a follow-up to the Daphne Initiative, which ran from 1997 to 1999. Violence is understood in the...

Consumer protection.(Programmes And Actions)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... The aim of the Consumer protection programme is to establish a general framework for Community activities in favour of consumers. The programme, which runs from 1999 to 2003, consists of actions designed to help protect the health, safety and...

Enterprise, entrepreneurship and SMEs.(Programmes And Actions)
November 1, 2002... More than 99% of the 18 million EEA enterprises in the non-agricultural market sectors are small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). They employ two thirds of the total workforce and generate more than half of the total turnover. Furthermore,...

Audio-visual sector.(Programmes And Actions)
November 1, 2002... Today, over 60% of European films distributed outside their country of origin are supported by the European Union's Media programme. Started as a decentralised Media initiative in 1991, Media II (1996-2000) established a series of successful...

Civil protection.(Programmes And Actions)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... The purpose of Community cooperation in the field of Civil Protection is to help ensure better protection for people, the environment and property in the event of natural and technological disasters. The EEA EFTA States participate fully in the...

Culture.(Programmes And Actions)
November 1, 2002... The Maastricht Treaty of 1993 paved the way for the first EU programmes in culture, by requesting the Community to > The Treaty singled out four areas for support: improvement of the knowledge and dissemination of the culture and history of the...

Energy.(Programmes And Actions)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... The Save programme (1998-2002) is dedicated to improve energy efficiency and encouraging energy-saving behaviour through policy measures, information, studies and pilot actions and the creation of local and regional energy management agencies....

Employment.(Programmes And Actions)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... In 1998, the EU decided to establish Community activities for analysis, research and cooperation in the field of employment and the labour market, which were also extended to the EEA EFTA States. The follow-up programme, Community incentive...

Public health.(Programmes And Actions)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... The existing eight programmes (see Table 2) in the field of public health will next year be replaced by a global Public health programme (2003-2008). The new programme, which has a total budget of EUR 312 million for the six year period, will...

Services and systems.(Programmes And Actions)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... Unlike programmes and actions, set up for a limited time period and with a fixed budget, the services and systems in table 5 have been established as permanent activities. Their budgets are normally decided on for one year at a time through the...

European statistics.(Programmes And Actions)
November 1, 2002... Eurostat--the Statistical Office of the European Communities, was established in 1953, and is one of the Directorates-General (DGs) of the Commission. Its mission is to provide the European Union with high quality statistical information. In...

European employment service.(Programmes And Actions)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... To encourage free movement and help workers to find employment in member countries other than their own, the Community system SEDOC was improved in 1992 and renamed EURES--European Employment Service. The countries participating in EURES are...

Community mechanism in the field of civil protection.(Programmes And Actions)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... The Community mechanism to facilitate reinforced cooperation in civil protection assistance interventions was established in 2002 following several environmental, natural and technological disasters that showed a need for urgent improvement of...

Decentralised agencies.(Programmes And Actions)
November 1, 2002... The first decentralised Community bodies were created in 1975. With the development of the internal market, a series of new agencies appeared, particularly in the nineties. Most of these agencies have tasks of a technical or scientific nature....

European Environment Agency.(Programmes And Actions)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... The European Environment Agency, situated in Copenhagen, began its work in 1994, and was expanded the following year to include Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway with the entry into force of the EEA Agreement. Most candidate countries joined...

European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products.(Programmes And Actions)
November 1, 2002... Before a new medicine can be made available, companies conduct lengthy series of toxicity, pharmacology and clinical tests. The result of these tests has to be evaluated to verify the quality, safety and efficacy of the medicine before it can...

The European Agency for safety and health at Work.(Programmes And Actions)
November 1, 2002... The Agency, which was established in 1994 and is based in Bilbao, collects, analyses and disseminates information with the aim of improving safety and health in Europe. It brings together representatives of governments, employers' and workers'...

The new safety agencies.(Programmes And Actions)
November 1, 2002... In the first half of 2002 the European Union created three new agencies related to safety issues, all based in Brussels at least in the start-up phase. The EEA EFTA States have requested participation in the agencies, as their activities will...

The EEA budget.(1.2 Financing the activities)
November 1, 2002... The EEA budget covers the financial contributions from the EEA EFTA States to the EU budget for their participation in EU programmes, actions, services and agencies. The principles applied in relation to the contributions are set out in Article...

Contributions to the operational budget.(1.2 Financing the activities)
November 1, 2002... When an EU programme is adopted by a co-decision of the European Parliament and the Council, or by the Council alone (after consultation with the European Parliament), the decision will specify the total amount that can to be spent on projects,...

Commitments and payments.(1.2 Financing the activities)
November 1, 2002... Allocations made in the annual EU and EEA budgets for the signing of new project contracts are referred to as commitment appropriations (French: engagements). The amounts committed to new projects in 2002 are to cover all the future expenses of...

Contributions to the administrative budget.(1.2 Financing the activities)
November 1, 2002... The administrative budget of an EU programme or activity covers expenditures such as salaries for permanent and temporary staff, buildings and equipment, IT costs and pensions. Contrary to the operational costs where the EEA EFTA States pay a...

Final Result.(1.2 Financing the Activities)
November 1, 2002... As already mentioned, the payment appropriations only give an estimate of what the Commission intends to spend during the year. Most activities undertaken by the EU take more than one year and the Commission is allowed to spend more than...

Total contributions.(1.2 Financing the activities)
November 1, 2002... Table 10 shows the total contributions from the EEA EFTA States to the EU budget in 2002, taking into account adjustments due to the final results for the budget year 2000, corresponding to the total funds transferred to the Commission in 2002...

Cost-sharing among the EEA EFTA states.(1.2 Financing the activities)
November 1, 2002... While the proportionality factor determining the overall EEA EFTA contribution is calculated by the European Commission, it is the EFTA Council that decides on the internal cost-sharing among the EEA EFTA States. In calculating the...

Budgetary procedures.(1.2 Financing the activities)
November 1, 2002... The procedures for establishing the EEA bud-get involve a number of steps and players, both on the EEA EFTA and EU sides, as shown in the text and calendar in the box below. The first step towards including a new EU activity in the EEA...

2. Reducing social and economic disparities.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... In the Preamble to the EEA Agreement, the contracting parties state their aim of promoting a harmonious development of the EEA and their conviction of the need to contribute to the reduction of economic and social disparities between member...

2.1 The Financial Mechanism (1994-1998).
November 1, 2002... In accordance with the EEA Agreement, the Financial Mechanism has provided two different types of project assistance to the beneficiary states: grants for a total amount of ECU 500 million, and 2% points p.a. interest rebates on loans of EUR 1...

2.2 The Financial Instrument (1999-2003).
November 1, 2002... The Financial Instrument, as provided for in Protocol 31 (Article 19 and Appendix 4)(1) will make EUR 119.6 million available over five years. The assistance will be entirely in the form of grants. The beneficiary states are Portugal, Spain,...

EU programmes: evaluations, analysis and reports.(Annex I)
November 1, 2002... The list below includes evaluations, analysis and reports on the functioning of various EU programmes commissioned by the European Commission or one of the EEA EFTA States. Many of the studies have been conducted by external and independent...

Projects funded by the financial mechanism (1994-1998).(Annex II)
November 1, 2002... 1. Grants (56 projects; committed amounts as at 31.12.1998): GREECE Project Commitment year Grant (EUR million) Geothermal...