The European Commission has launched a public consultation today on how to make it easier for service providers to work across the EU. As announced in the Single Market Strategy, the Commission plans to propose a Services Passport by the end of 2016 to simplify the administrative procedures for service providers who want to expand to other Member States.

The European Commission is setting up an informal expert group to advice the Commission on matters pertaining to the education, training, skills and career development within the blue economy. The deadline for submission is 31 May 2016. More information

The European Commission has launched a call for applications aiming at supporting the development of possible process and product criteria for secondary raw materials that could be used in the production of fertilising products. The initiative follows the launch of the revision of the Fertiliser Regulation.

The opportunities offered by big data and digital platforms are massive. This report, prepared by the Strategic Policy Forum on Digital Entrepreneurship, illustrates the enormous potential gains that are available in this area. Based on the key recommendations of the Strategic Policy Forum, presented in March 2016 in an executive summary the report sets out the key challenges of digital transformation in three important industries

The European Commission welcomes today's vote by the European Parliament which paves the way for common EU standards against the manipulation of financial benchmarks. The adoption of the proposed Regulation on financial benchmarks was approved by a large majority in the plenary session and it follows a political agreement by the European Parliament and the Council in November 2015.

The European Commission published its fourth monitoring report in which it gathers good practices of projects across Europe, which on the one hand focused on the Your First EURES Job (YfEJ) initiative, and on the other on projects relating to employment, social protection and working conditions (the so-called PROGRESS axis of EaSI). This monitoring is part of the EU's Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI).

The project will support the organisation of EU–third country events at the occasion of major international fairs, inside and outside the EU, including business-to-business, cluster-to-cluster, cluster-to-business meetings, information events, etc. — 10 fairs should be covered over 2 years. This project is based on cooperation between the European Commission and the Member State actors and agencies active in SME internationalisation and will be implemented via a call for tenders.

Delivering on its strategy to create a Digital Single Market, the Commission today unveiled its plans to help European industry, SMEs, researchers and public authorities make the most of new technologies. The European Commission today presented a set of measures to support and link up national initiatives for the digitisation of industry and related services across all sectors and to boost investment through strategic partnerships and networks.

 In view of the many current unsustainable resources use and environmental degradation trends, ensuring future success requires reducing the negative emissions and environmental impacts of economic activities, decreasing resources use to get back into the range of natural sustainability while creating new opportunities for people to make a decent living. This foresight study aimed at developing long-term visions for eco-industries (Horizon 2035), identifying relevant trends and drivers, highlighting implications for EU policies and describing realistic and desirable possible futures

In September 2015 the Commission launched the Cross-border Review, to study the obstacles that people in the border regions are still facing. Part of this review was an EU-wide public consultation, for which the results are unveiled today. Not only did respondents clearly identify remaining cross-border issues, but they were also asked to put forward concrete ideas on how to overcome them, which are compiled in this report.