“Online gambling must be accompanied with strong means of consumer protection”, underlined Sirpa Pietikäinen MEP, the EPP Group Spokeswoman on online gambling in the internal market, which was voted today in the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection.

“Gambling is an economic activity of a special nature, where restrictions are needed for consumer protection, fraud prevention, the fight against money laundering and the preservation of public order and public health”, said Pietikäinen.

The conjunction of recession and political turbulence offers challenging conditions for a euro area recovery. The Chief Economists who compose the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee[i] (EMAC) of the European Banking Federation (EBF) share a rather pessimistic view of the coming months in their Mid-year Outlook for 2013-2014, published today.

EU rules on the right of access to a lawyer in criminal proceedings were finalised in a final round of trialogue negotiations between the European Parliament and Council this evening. Green justice and home affairs spokesperson Jan Philipp Albrecht welcomed the deal, stating:

KUALA LUMPUR, 29 May 2013 – Two new vaccines that help protect against cervical cancer, measles and rubella are spearheading the GAVI Alliance’s commitment to improving the health of girls and women.

With GAVI support, over 30 million girls in over 40 countries will be protected against cervical cancer with human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines by 2020, preventing over half a million deaths.

Citing concerns over development and integration in Central Africa, GUE/NGL MEPs today voted against the ratification of an interim Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Cameroon in Brussels.

"If only one of the 7 countries of the Central African region, Cameroon, is signing with the EU, this is not an EPA with Central Africa as presented by the Commission, and shows that there is a problem with EU requests for access to the markets of these countries," Helmut Scholz said.