European Commission news

Today is World Tuberculosis Day.  The European Commission research funding programmes have been supporting research on this vital disease for many years. On 19 March 2009, one EU-funded project, `New Medicines for Tuberculosis`, announced the discovery of a new drug candidate, showing promising prospects for fighting not only Tuberculosis (TB), but also for combating the Extensively Drug Resistant form of the disease. The European Commission has provided over EUR 11 million for this research pr

Complaints about environmental issues like water and waste pollution constituted the majority of petitions sent to MEPs last year. On average four a day were received dealing with everything from health to human rights. Usually the petitioners want the EP to investigate cases where they think a country has broken or not applied EU law. Monday sees a debate on the performance of the Petition`s Committee in 2007.

Last year the Spanish, Germans and Romanians were the most active petitioners to