The European Agency for the Operational Management of large-scale IT Systems in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (eu-LISA), is an EU agency that was established to provide a long-term solution for the operational management of large-scale IT systems, which are essential instruments in the implementation of the asylum, border management and migration policies of the EU.

FRONTEX is the agency of the European Union  that manages the cooperation between national border guards that is undertaken to secure the external borders of the union, including from illegal immigration, human trafficking and terrorist infiltration. The agency was established in 2004 and has its seat in Warsaw, Poland.

Responsibilities

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) is a decentralised agency of the European Union with the task of collecting, analysing and disseminating relevant information that can serve the needs of people involved in safety and health at work. EU-OSHA is based in Bilbao, Spain, where it has a staff of occupational safety and health, communication and administrative specialists.

The Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) is an agency of the European Union, located in Angers, France. It was established in 1994. Its task is to administer a system of plant variety rights, also known as plant breeders’ rights, a form of intellectual property right relating to plants. The CPVO works rather like the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market: it grants intellectual property protection for new plant varieties The right has validity in the European Union in a similar manner that OHIM registers Community Trademarks and the Community Design.

Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) contributes to the development and better functioning of the internal market for electronic communications networks and services. It does so, by aiming to ensure a consistent application of the EU regulatory framework and by aiming to promote an effective internal market in telecoms sector, in order to bring even greater benefits to consumers and businesses alike.

The Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) was created by the Third Energy Package to further progress the completion of the internal energy market both for electricity and natural gas. ACER was officially launched in March 2011, and has its seat in Ljubljana, Slovenia. As an independent European structure which fosters cooperation among European energy regulators, ACER ensures that market integration and the harmonisation of regulatory frameworks are achieved within the framework of the EU’s energy policy objectives. The latter aim to create:

The European Parliament finally voted on 8 July on one of the most important dossiers it deals with in this term, the Trade Agreement with the US (TTIP). A comfortable majority of Members have endorsed the continuation of negotiations conducted by the EU Executive (the Commission) with its American counterpart. The pro-TTIP camp was formed of the People’s Party (EPP), the majority of the Socialists & Democrats (S&D), Conservatives & Reformists (ECR) and Liberal-democrats (ALDE), which gathered 436 votes (61%).

To be effective political leadership in the EU requires:

Fundamentally, the Greek economy eventually faced reality. The debt-financed growth bubble that occurred upon joining the euro eventually burst. The adjustment, however, was harsher and more painful than necessary. Fiscal consolidation was too tight and too front-loaded, and debt restructuring was too little and too late. The sequence of structural reforms was plainly wrong.

The real issue about the new situation in Greece is that it is a microcosm of massive flaws in the way European political economy has moved in the last two decades at both the level of the European Union and the Member States. Neither in Brussels nor in Athens does anyone yet seem to understand that.

In what is being seen as a capitulation, Greece negotiators agreed to a list of measures even stricter than those rejected by the country's voters in the referendum. In return, Greece will receive up to EUR 86 bn in new bailout aid, on condition that measures are implemented.