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| Currently,
there are 32 activities presented on these pages.
Each activity is a subject area, such as agriculture,
environment or research, in which the EU manages
programmes, organises events or passes legislation. |
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Agriculture
The aim of the common
agricultural policy is to provide farmers with a
reasonable standard of living, consumers with quality food
at fair prices and to preserve our rural heritage. The
policy has evolved to meet society’s changing needs, so
that food safety, preservation of the environment, value
for money and agriculture as a source of crops to convert
to fuel have acquired steadily growing importance.
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Audiovisual and Media
Television is our primary source of information and
entertainment. We each spend, on average, up to three
hours a day watching news, sports, films and other
programmes. The audiovisual sector provides one million EU
jobs. It involves big commercial interests and issues of
cultural diversity, public service and social
responsibility. Each national government runs its own
audiovisual policy, while the Union sets rules and
guidelines where common interests, like open EU borders
and fair competition, are concerned.
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Budget
What do a small bakery in the Charlottenburg district of
Berlin and teachers of linguistics at Slovenia's Jozef
Stefan Institute, research engineers at Krakow University
of Technology and Lisbon’s Oriente railway station have in
common? All have received funding from the European
Union’s budget. By far the largest share of the EU’s
annual budget is spent for the benefit of people and
communities across Europe. The EU budget helps to pay, for
example, for clean air and water, safer food and cancer
research.
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Competition
Effective competition is crucial to an open market
economy. It cuts prices, raises quality and expands
customer choice. Competition allows technological
innovation to flourish. The European Commission has wide
powers to make sure businesses and governments stick to
European Union rules on fair play in trade in goods and
services, while allowing governments to step in if markets
are failing consumers or business, or to promote
innovation, unified standards, or small business
development.
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Consumers
Every citizen is a consumer and the European Union takes
great care to protect their health, safety and economic
well-being. It promotes their rights to information and
education, takes steps to help them safeguard their
interests, and encourages them to set up and run self-help
consumer associations.
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Culture
Language, literature, performing arts, visual arts,
architecture, crafts, the cinema and broadcasting are all
part of Europe’s cultural diversity. Although belonging to
a specific country or region, they represent part of
Europe’s common cultural heritage. The aim of the European
Union is double: to preserve and support this diversity
and to help make it accessible to others.
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Customs
The customs union was one of the EU’s earliest milestones.
It abolished customs duties at internal borders and put in
place a uniform system for taxing imports. Internal border
controls subsequently disappeared. Customs officers are
now found only at the EU’s external borders. They not only
keep trade flowing, but help protect the environment and
our cultural heritage, and protect jobs by combating
counterfeiting and piracy.
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Development
Nearly half the money spent to help poor countries comes
from the European Union and its member states, making it
the world’s biggest aid donor. But development policy is
about more than providing clean water and surfaced roads,
important though these are. The Union also uses trade to
drive development by opening its markets to exports from
poor countries and by encouraging them to trade more with
each other.
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Economic and Monetary
Affairs
EU
member governments run their economies according to
similar principles of economic management. They coordinate
their policies in order to deliver steady growth, more
jobs and a competitive economy across the EU, one which
will at the same time preserve the European social model
and protect the environment.
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Education, Training,
Youth
The opportunities which the EU offers its citizens for
living, studying and working in other countries make a
major contribution to cross-cultural understanding,
personal development and the realisation of the EU’s full
economic potential. Each year, well over one million EU
citizens of all ages benefit from EU-funded educational,
vocational and citizenship-building programmes.
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Employment and Social
Affairs
More and better jobs, and equal
opportunities are the watchwords of European employment
and social policy. The Union wants everyone to be
adequately equipped to keep up with change in a
knowledge-based economy. Employment and social policy are
central to what is known as the ‘Lisbon agenda’ , the EU
policy framework for creating growth and jobs.
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Energy
We take energy for granted.
Fuel shortages and power cuts are rare, but timely,
reminders that we rely on energy for transport, for
heating our homes in winter, cooling them in summer and
running our factories, farms and offices. But many energy
resources are finite. In addition, energy use is often a
source of pollution. Environmental sustainability and the
need to maximise security of supply and remain
internationally competitive as the price of scarce
conventional fuels rises means using less fossil fuel,
using it more intelligently and developing alternatives.
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Enlargement
The entry of eight central and
eastern European countries together with Cyprus and Malta
into the European Union on 1 May 2004 was a historic
achievement, ending centuries of division. Europe reunited
means a stronger, democratic and more stable continent,
with a single market providing economic benefits for all
its 460 million citizens.
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Enterprise
While modern and often successful, European business and
industry cannot afford to rest on their laurels. It is a
constant challenge to remain competitive, and keep up with
technology, and the pace of growth in competing countries.
Meeting the challenge successfully is essential for
sustainable growth, for job creation and for our greater
prosperity.
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Environment
Protecting the environment is essential for the quality of
life of current and future generations. The challenge is
to combine this with continuing economic growth in a way
which is sustainable over the long term. European Union
environment policy is based on the belief that high
environmental standards stimulate innovation and business
opportunities. Economic, social and environment policies
are closely integrated.
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External Relations
The sheer size of the European Union in economic, trade
and financial terms makes it a world player. The EU has a
web of bilateral and multilateral agreements covering most
countries and regions of the globe. The biggest trader and
home to the world’s second currency, the EU also spends
more than €500 million a month in assistance projects in
all five continents. Handling the Union’s external
relations is literally a global responsibility.
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External Trade
The European Union is the world’s biggest trader,
accounting for 20% of global imports and exports. Free
trade among its members underpinned the successful launch
nearly 50 years ago of the EU. The Union is therefore a
leading player in efforts to liberalise world trade for
the mutual benefit of rich and poor countries alike.
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Fisheries and Maritime
Affairs
The sea and its resources make an important contribution
to jobs and growth in the EU. They provide food and energy
(from offshore oil and gas fields), while the EU’s
merchant fleet carries its trade across the world’s
oceans. Coastal areas are home to tourism – another big
economic sector. We must, therefore, exploit the sea’s
resources responsibly, for example by preventing
over-fishing and ensuring that oil and gas extraction does
not harm the marine environment.
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Food Safety
Consumer confidence in the safety of food products has
sometimes been shaken in recent years by the cumulative
impacts of food-related health crises. Responding to the
challenge, the European Union has put in place a
comprehensive strategy to restore people’s belief in the
safety of their food “from the farm to the fork”.
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Foreign and Security
Policy
The idea that the European Union should speak with one
voice in world affairs is as old as the European
integration process itself. But the Union has made less
progress in forging a common foreign and security policy
over the years than in creating a single market and a
single currency. The geopolitical changes following the
collapse of communism, and the outbreak of regional crises
in the Balkans and beyond, have led EU members to redouble
their efforts to speak and act as one.
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Fraud
Cigarette smuggling, counterfeit euro coins, diversion of
aid for Kosovo, subsidies for oranges grown on farms which
do not exist —all these defraud European taxpayers. The
European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) has more than 300
officials looking after the financial interests of the
European Union and its taxpayers.
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Humanitarian
aid
Images of conflict and disaster fill our televisions
screens and newspaper front-pages every week. The European
Union is at the heart of a network whose role is to
alleviate the ensuing human suffering. The aim is to get
aid to those who need it as quickly as possible,
irrespective of race, religion or political convictions,
or whether the crisis results from a man-made conflict or
a natural disaster.
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Human rights
Human rights, democracy and the rule of law are core
values of the European Union. Embedded in its founding
treaty, they have been reinforced by the adoption of a
Charter of Fundamental Rights. Respect for human rights is
a prerequisite for countries seeking to join the Union and
a precondition for countries who have concluded trade and
other agreements with it.
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Information
Society
Practically non-existent 15 years ago, mobile phones are
everywhere. The internet provides endless streams of
online information. We are offered a bewildering array of
programmes and services as high-capacity digital systems
bring together the formerly separate worlds of
broadcasting and telecommunications. This revolution in
information technology is creating the information society
- at home, at school and at work. The European Union and
its policies and actions have guided and supported the
revolution since the beginning.
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Institutional affairs
The European Union is a unique body. Its members are
sovereign states who have decided to pool their
sovereignty in some key areas of government. These are
areas where it is in their joint interest to act together.
Like any government, the Union has a legislative and an
executive branch and an independent judiciary. These are
supported and complemented by a number of other
institutions.
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Internal Market
More than ten years on, we take the European single market
for granted. With old barriers gone, people, goods,
services and money move around Europe as freely as within
one country. We travel at will across the EU’s internal
frontiers for business and pleasure or, if we choose, we
can stay at home and enjoy a dazzling array of products
from all over the European Union. In 1993, the single
market was the EU’s greatest achievement; it was also its
toughest challenge.
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Justice, freedom and
security
The freedom European Union citizens enjoy to travel, work
and live anywhere in the EU can easily be taken for
granted. To benefit fully from this right, people need to
lead their lives and go about their business in security
and safety. They must be protected against international
crime and enjoy equal access to justice and respect for
their fundamental rights across the Union.
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Public Health
In
a world where people regularly travel between countries
and continents, threats to the health of EU citizens from
communicable diseases cannot be quarantined within
national borders. Diseases caused by smoking, poor
nutrition or pollution are a matter of concern in all EU
countries. In a single market, the safety of
pharmaceuticals or blood products is a shared
responsibility. While the primary responsibility for
health care lies with member states, many public health
issues are best dealt with via a concerted EU response.
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Regional Policy
Although the European Union is one of the richest parts of
the world, there are striking internal disparities of
income and opportunity between its regions. The entry of
10 new member countries in May 2004, whose incomes are
well below the EU average, has widened these gaps.
Regional policy transfers resources from affluent to
poorer regions. It is both an instrument of financial
solidarity and a powerful force for economic integration.
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Research and Innovation
Research and innovation help deliver jobs, prosperity and
quality of life. The EU leads the world in many
technologies, but faces increasing challenges not just
from traditional competitors, but from emerging economies.
Joint programmes can deliver results that member states
cannot achieve in isolation. The main tool is the Sixth
Framework Programme.
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Taxation
Within the EU, governments retain sole responsibility for
levels of direct taxation –i.e. tax on personal incomes
and company profits. What EU taxation policy does is
ensure that tax rules are consistent with the goals of job
creation, the EU’s competitiveness, the single market and
free movement of capital.
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Transport
Open frontiers and affordable transport have given
Europeans unprecedented levels of personal mobility. Goods
are shipped rapidly and efficiently from factory to
customer, often in different countries. The European Union
has contributed by opening national markets to competition
and by removing physical and technical barriers to free
movement. But today’s transport patterns and growth rates
are unsustainable.
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