(Brussels, 5 June 2012) At a high-level event in Brussels today, FoodDrinkEurope launched its Environmental Sustainability Vision Towards 2030.  The Vision, a first for FoodDrinkEurope in this area, is part of a broad collaborative work with other stakeholders across the supply chain, governments, civil society and academia, covering three cores areas of work: (i) sustainable sourcing; (ii) resource efficiency along the food chain; and (iii) sustainable consumption and production.

Draft positioning papers and reports point of departure for policy

PRESS RELEASE 4 June 2012

Today, Ecommerce Europe, the new European organisation for promoting the interests of webshops, held three pre-conferences around the topics: e-regulations, e-payments and e-logistics. The pre-conferences took place in Barcelona, just before the annual Global E-commerce Summit (GES).

ETNO welcomes the release for public consultation by the Commission of the draft Guidelines for broadband networks. As underlined on many occasions, ETNO believes that the use of public funds for the deployment high speed broadband networks should be limited to those areas of Members States’ territory where no private investment is foreseen. Therefore, ETNO welcomes that the draft guidelines reiterate the importance of the principle of non-crowding out of private investments.

At a time when Europeans are concerned about the state of the economy, we are calling for caution on the use of European public funds. Where state aid for broadband is concerned, funds should go where citizens are not being served by connectivity at all. 

"Social entrepreneurship represents 10% of European undertakings and 11 million workers. The market of responsible investment amounts to €1000m in Europe today. These new approaches are developing fast. The EU must support them in proposing a reliable and attractive European investment instrument.