Brussels, 21 May 2014 -- Today, 26 Member States have signed the Agreement on the transfer and mutualisation of contributions to the Single Resolution Fund (SRF), an essential part of the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) - STATEMENT/14/119. This is an important signal of the commitment of Member States, to make the banking union a success. The Agreement signed today is a key component of the SRM as it is the pre-requisite to the application of certain provisions in the SRM...

With most financial reform measures now adopted, the European Commission has today published a first comprehensive review of the financial regulation agenda as a whole. This economic review sets out how the reforms will deliver a safer and more responsible financial system by enhancing financial stability, deepening the single market for financial services and improving its efficiency whilst improving market integrity and confidence. Evidence suggests that the total expected benefits of the financial regulation agenda will outweigh the expected...

NEGOTIATIONS The fifth round of U.S. - EU negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) agreement will take place in Arlington, Virginia from May 19 – 23, 2014.  The negotiating teams will discuss the full range of T-TIP negotiating issues including, trade in goods and services; investment; regulatory issues; sanitary and phytosanitary measures; government procurement; intellectual property rights; electronic commerce and telecommunications; environment; labor; small and medium-sized enterprises; and energy and raw materials. STAKEHOLDER FORUM On the margins of the...

The European Commission today publishes negotiating positions in five more important topics of current talks with the US on a future trade and investment deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This follows publication in July 2013 of our initial positions and is part of our efforts to be fully transparent about the negotiations (more on our transparency efforts). The papers released today include proposals for enhancing the compatibility of each other’s existing rules and regulations, or working more closely...

Today, Secretary Penny Pritzker announced NEI/NEXT – a data-based, customer service-driven initiative to ensure that more American businesses can fully capitalize on markets that are opening up around the world. Through five core objectives, NEI/NEXT will build on Administration-wide achievements under the National Export Initiative (NEI), to help all businesses reach the 95 percent of consumers who live outside the United States. Under the NEI, the United States has had four straight record-breaking years of exports – hitting an all-time high...

The Austrian quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger was recently officially named to be a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in the USA. Zeilinger, Professor at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information at the University of Vienna, has served as President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences since 2013, and has also been a member of the French Academy of Sciences since then. Anton Zeilinger or “Mr. Beam“. Photo: J. Godany "Mr. Beam", "Quantum Pope", "Pop Star...

Today, May 9th, the European Union celebrates Europe Day to commemorate the day in 1950 when French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed consolidating the coal and steel industries of Europe, binding nations so closely together that renewed war would be unthinkable. The "Schuman Declaration" is considered to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union of 28 Member States with half a billion people living in peace together. The European Union’s founding fathers reacted to...

A speech by José Manuel Durão Barroso, President of the European Commission | Humboldt University of Berlin, 8 May 2014 'Nós estamos na Europa e é na Europa que nós nos salvamos ou nos perdemos todos.'1 Eduardo Lourenço First of all let me thank you very much for your kind invitation to be present here in this great German and European institution, the Humboldt University. I really feel the emotion of being in the university of Hegel, of Max Planck, of Albert...