Social innovation driven by social business and young entrepreneurship

Preparatory action

Social innovation driven by social business and young entrepreneurship

CALL FOR PROPOSALS - VP/2013/017

The objective of the preparatory action is to identify, develop, promote and disseminate the good practice of national, regional or local governments and of financial intermediaries in assisting young social entrepreneurs at times of high youth unemployment. As such, the preparatory action will contribute to realising the potential of young and social entrepreneurship, emphasised also in the Commission’s Social Business Initiative 2011, Annual Growth Survey 2011, as well as in the Communications ’Towards a job-rich recovery’ 2012 and ‘Social Investment for Growth and Cohesion’ 2013.

The Preparatory Action is addressed to social enterprises in their early stages, and to social enterprises started or developed by young people that have the potential for 


• realising innovative solutions with a clear social and environmental impact,

• scaling their innovative approach, or for

• transferring their approach for replication in particular to young entrepreneurs. 

Development of demonstrators using the information from Copernicus, the European Earth observation programme, and signals from Galileo and EGNOS, the European GNSS

105/G/ENT/CIP/13/C/N03C03

The overall purpose of this call is to support a number of concrete and operational activities with special emphasis on promoting the further use of data and information from Earth monitoring and satellite navigation for which Europe is investing massively through the Copernicus, EGNOS and Galileo programmes.

The main objective of the call for proposals is to develop large-scale demonstrators of Copernicus and the European GNSS-based services. This action aims to implement innovative services on a large scale based on Copernicus and the European GNSS to address specific societal challenges or to facilitate the emergence of new industries in a given región or metropolitan area.

The call shall be implemented in close coordination and cooperation with the on-going actions from European Mobile and Mobility Industries Alliance. The Alliance may contribute in disseminating and sharing, as widely as possible, the experience gained by the actions supported through this call for proposals. Coordination and cooperation with actions for the development of applications (where data is generated by Copernicus) and the European GNSS signals is also strongly encouraged.

See : http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/space/copernicus/

Commission clears acquisition of joint control over London Luton Airport by AENA Internacional and AXA PE

European Commission - 10/10/2013

Press Releases

The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the acquisition of joint control over London Luton Airport Group Limited of the UK ("the target") by AENA Desarrollo Internacional, S.A. of Spain and AXA Investment Managers Private Equity, S.A. of France. AENA Internacional manages airports in Spain, while AXA PE is active in private equity investment. 

As the target operates the London Luton airport, the Commission assessed the effects of the proposed transaction on the markets for navigation services, airport infrastructure services as well as on the market for automatic handling material systems. The Commission concluded that the transaction would not raise competition concerns. Indeed the merged entity would not be able to shut out suppliers given its limited market shares, nor would it also be able to shut out customers because the target operates a single airport in the whole European Economic Area (EEA). The operation has been examined under the normal merger review procedure. More information is available on the

 Commission's competition website in the public case register

under the case number

 M.7008 .

The Financial Instrument for the Environment (LIFE+)

NGO operating grants for 2014 under the Financial Instrument for the Environment (LIFE+) - Call for the submission of proposals from European non-governmental organisations primarily active in the field of environmental protection

 Contributions would be towards the costs that European environmental NGOs have to bear in carrying out the activities provided for in their 2014 annual work programme. Applicant organisations should be operating at a European level either singly or in the form of several co-ordinated associations with a structure (membership base) and activities covering at least three EU Member States. Activities and membership base should primarily be at a European level and not at international level.

The Programme will be open to the participation of European NGOs established (legally registered) in EU27 plus Croatia.

See: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/ngos/finansup_14.htm