School children could soon receive free fruit and vegetables in school, under a proposal unveiled by the European Commission on Tuesday (8 July) aimed at reducing the number of overweight children in the EU.
Fresh fruit and vegetables worth €90 million of EU money would be distributed to schools, while member states participating in the programme […]

European parliamentarians have been enjoying their first ride aboard their very own train. The high-speed Thalys train has launched a new, direct service from Brussels to the French city of Strasbourg exclusively for MEPs.
The service is an effort to silence growing discontent over the ‘travelling circus’, which involves the entire European Parliament uprooting to […]

The European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, has expressed his concern about the problems encountered by the European Commission in paying its bills on time.
This follows his latest investigation into the timeliness of the Commission’s payments to citizens, companies, universities, NGOs, and other organisations involved in EU-funded projects and contracts.
In 2007, delays occurred in more than […]

Interesting project in Bonn, covered by Deutsche Welle:
20 plots, 15 cultures – one garden. Families from 15 different cultures are growing the International Garden in Bonn together.
View the photogallery on Deutsche Welle.
Visit the website of the project with audio links: Deutsche Welle, July 2008
 
 
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Every Sunday TV Brussel broadcasts a special lifestyle programme aimed at the international community in the Belgian capital.
Brussels International goes out on Sunday at 6:15 PM and is repeated until Monday evening.
The programme is in English, but focuses on the rich diversity of the international community in Brussels.
Source: Flanders.be, 1 July 2008
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The Belgian federal government has launched a new website.
The new version of the website - www.belgium.be - contains 11 sub-categories, including Family, Justice, Mobility, Health, Education, Taxes, and Work.
There is also a category entitled ‘About Belgium’. It includes information on Tourism and Belgium in general.
The site is available in 4 languages - Dutch, French, […]

Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg (Benelux) will sign a new reciprocal treaty in The Hague next month, the Benelux Treaty.
“The old treaty has yielded much for our countries, the new one modernises and strengthens the partnership,” Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen announced yesterday in Brussels after a meeting with his Belgian and Luxembourg counterparts. “The cooperation […]

It could take a week to clear the wreckage of the US cargo plane, a Boeing 747 that crashed at Brussels Zaventem Airport on Sunday. The US carrier Kalitta Air broke apart close to a row of houses while trying to abort a takeoff Sunday. The plane snapped into three pieces. Air traffic, but also […]

The Jewish community of Maastricht, Netherlands, together with the municipality and the local Sphinx Tiles manufacturer, arranged for the reburial of Jewish remains from an 18th century cemetery.
According to local historians, the area surrounding the planned construction of a new Sphinx building was used by the Jewish community as a cemetery from 1782 to 1822.
Read […]

Europe is facing a “demographic winter” as pensioners outnumber teenagers and birth rates fall, according to a report by the Institute for Family Policy.
The snapshot survey of family life in 27 European countries also says that marriages across Europe are breaking down at the rate of one every 30 seconds. Because of this, the average […]

Some 350 Dutch civil servants who work for the European institutions and MEPs are returning to their former secondary schools for a day to talk with school pupils about their work and the European Union.
The operation, ‘EU: Back to School’, will see Dutch EU employees deliver guest lessons to around 11,000 schoolchildren today (14 April) […]

A French court this month upheld a weekly magazine’s right to reprint a Danish cartoon of the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. At the same time, it affirmed a lower court’s finding that the image, published two years ago, could be “shocking, even hurtful” to devout Muslims.
The split decision illustrates how France […]

As part of the EU’s ongoing quest to make itself more competitive, the bloc’s leaders have suggested creating a “fifth freedom” of knowledge to be added to the four original principles of free movement of persons, capital, services and goods in the European Union.
“Member states and the EU must remove barriers to the free movement […]

Brussels, the capital of Europe, is the most boring city on the continent, despite its renown for its waffles, chocolates, and comic books, according to a survey of international travellers published on Wednesday (12 March).
The city just beat out Zurich and Warsaw for the title, who came second and third in the race for the […]

The European Parliament in Strasbourg held a special session on Wednesday to celebrate 50 years since the European Union’s six founding members set up a common parliament . Back in 1958, the assembly was a mere talking shop consulted by governments on select issues. Now the 785-member parliament represents 27 states and is the […]

A US government report says that a quarter of all drugs intended for Europe are imported through Belgium, making the country one of the biggest drug transit ports on the continent. The report says that every year 60 tons of cocaine and 30 tons of heroin arrive in the country.
Belgium is an ideal entry point […]

The Netherlands is passing on a conflict with NATO to the EU. The Hague is asking the European Commission to apply the same strict noise norms to AWACS aircraft as for civil aircraft.
In December the Lower House, under evident pressure from the environmental lobby, adopted a motion in which closure of Dutch airspace to AWACS […]

5-plus which gives a n overview of tourism in five of Meuse-Rhine’s cities (Aachen, Hasselt, Heerlen, Liège and Maastricht) is launching a new web site today. Check the link.
Source: Meuse-Rhine Journal
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The Dutch and Belgian authorities must improve their cooperation in dealing with cross-border disasters. The Benelux parliament has pointed to this need. A committee of parliamentarians from both countries, headed by Mayor Jacques Niederer from Weert, has requested — among other things — a unified communication system. The Dutch C2000 system is not compatible with […]

The European Commission agreed to a plan to collect fingerprints and photographs from foreigners entering the EU, part of an effort to fortify the bloc’s borders.
The move is part of a European effort to fortify the bloc’s borders to the outside world. Brussels said the steps are needed to guarantee the free movement of Europeans […]

Nearly one in four European workers suffers from job-related stress. Demands on workers are increasing while job security is decreasing, according to a new study.
Europe’s reputation for 35-hour work weeks and generous amounts of vacation time belies the fact that many workers find themselves facing an unhealthy amount of stress.
Stress is responsible for more […]

In an age where Europeans are increasingly urged to share and cooperate across borders, it seems only logical that someone would have the idea to spread the possibility of wealth and good fortune between neighbors.
Plans are being mulled over by nine European countries to create a cross-border lottery where citizens of those countries joining the […]

The European Commission is to present proposals on Thursday (31 January) aimed at evaluating how satisfied consumers are with the bloc’s single market.
EU consumer protection commissioner Meglena Kuneva will unveil plans for a “Consumer Market Watch”, consisting of two steps – monitoring of the market and analysis of the collected data.
The goal is to evaluate […]

Kortrijk (West Flanders), Tournai (Wallonia) and Lille (in France) have agreed to work together to form a so-called ‘Euro-district’. The aim of the project is to join forces to tackle common cross-border problems.
Monday morning authorities from 14 public bodies of the three cities signed an agreement to establish the eurodistrict.
The cooperation between Kortrijk, Tournai and […]

There is no sex, no scandal, no sniping and no foul language, but a new Dutch reality show is getting ratings TV bosses dream of, with a quarter of the country glued to their television sets.
The “stars” are Dutch farmers trying to find wives to share love and the quiet, if rough, rural life. “The […]

Update on our article “Do you know A Dog of Flanders?”
The Belgian daily Het Belang van Limburg reports that Japan expert Jan Corteel has been arrested on Wednesday (23 January 2008) for the murder of his Japanese wife Yoshimi in their flat in Antwerp. Neighbours heard the couple fighting early in the morning but […]

For all those of us who want to keep up with the news in Europe, here’s a new tool offered by the European Journalism Centre:
The EJC is pleased to offer a hearty portion of European news with the beta version of eufeeds.eu, a continuously updated news site that serves up 300 direct news feeds, taken […]

Brussels, the capital city of Europe, boasts a vibrant international community. So far, they’ve lived next to, not with, Belgians. A new integration project is trying to change that.
One would think that Brussels was a melting pot of social integration and interaction, given its mix of Flemish and Francophone locals and the large number of […]

The first prize in this year’s ‘For Diversity. Against Discrimination’ Journalist Award has today been awarded to a Portuguese journalist writing about the discrimination faced by migrant workers in the Netherlands. The second and third prizes went to entries from France and the United Kingdom respectively. The special award to mark the 2007 European Year […]