The Commission presented on Thursday the EU Strategy on Offshore Renewable Energy that foresees to increase Europe's offshore wind capacity from its current level of 12 GW to at least 60 GW by 2030 and to 300 GW by 2050.

The European Commission should be more active in detecting problematic anti-trust and merger cases by launching more investigations on its own initiative, an EU watchdog found on Thursday.

The Commission adopted on Wednesday a recommendation on the use of rapid antigen tests for the Covid-19 diagnosis, following its engagement to ensure a common approach and more efficient testing strategies across the EU.

A few days after its contract with BioNTech and Pfizer, the Commission will authorise on Tuesday a new contract to secure another Covid-19 vaccine. This will allows us to buy up to 405 million doses of a vaccine produced by the European company CureVac, said EC President Ursula von der Leyen in a statement on Monday afternoon noting that “We need a safe and effective vaccine to end this pandemic”.

Restoring peatlands, improving waste management and reducing energy consumption in new buildings are among the 120 plus new LIFE programme projects, for which the Commission has approved an investment package of over €280m. Many of the projects are with cross-country scope and will be performed in several EU countries. 

The Commission has published two sets of draft model data protection clauses to launch the process to revise the existing Standard Contractual Clauses. These clauses are the most commonly used tool for international data transfers, including for transatlantic data flows. 

The European Commission launched today the New Consumer Agenda aimed at empowering European consumers to play an active role in the green and digital transitions. The Agenda also addresses how to increase consumer protection and resilience during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, which brought significant challenges affecting the daily lives of consumers.

The EU announced on Thursday that it will contribute an additional €100m in grant funding to support the COVAX Facility to secure access to the future Covid-19 vaccine in low and middle-income countries, the EU press service reported. The funds will complement the €400m in guarantees the EU already committed for COVAX, making the Union one of the leading donors.

The first-ever EU Strategy for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, non-binary, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) equality, was presented by the Commission on Thursday.

Drawing lessons from the current pandemic crisis, which revealed some clear gaps in the preparedness and responding to such huge sanitary emergencies, the Commission on Wednesday proposed the European Health Union package.