These two half-day courses will look at recent changes to how the EU works and where to find information about it.

'Lisbon changes' (morning) will highlight the main developments in the EU institutions and decision-making processes brought about by the new Treaty, including the advent of the General court, use of 'Union law' vs 'Community law', and extension of the 'ordinary legislative procedure'.
'Europa changes' (afternoon) will provide expert advice on navigating the new Europa website and its subsites, including EUR-Lex and Eurostat.

We're pleased to announce that the session on Europa will be attended by one of the webmasters/editors responsible for the Documentation centre part of the Europa website.

Launched last September as part of the new Europa site, the section has apparently received some negative feedback and the Commission is keen to get more views from users. So if you'd like to influence the (re-)design of at least part of Europa, book a place on the course and tell the Commission what you'd like to see.

Delegates can attend one session or both. Prices for EIA members are £90 half day, £140 full day; non-member prices are £125 and £175 respectively.
The draft programmes can be viewed via our Training page, which also has an online booking facility.

Both conference and Awards are being sponsored by Justis Publishing.

Places are free to EIA Members, with a £30 charge for others. More details are on the website.

All EIA publications are free of charge to Members; non-members can buy them as pdf files.

Myths and rumours explained
'Most of us rely on our national newspapers, television and radio news to find out about what is going on in the EU', states the introduction to this page. Looking through these media gems, it's little wonder that there is such ignorance of the EU and how it works. 'Energy-guzzling plasma TVs will be banned in Brussels eco blitz' is the latest addition to a long list of Euro horror stories, that also includes 'Ambulances must turn yellow for Europe', 'Bombay Mix to be renamed', 'Farmers not allowed to drive tractors' and 'EU makes vultures homeless'. The Commission not only highlights these daft stories (most of which originated in the UK press) but identifies what lies behind them (usually a piece of existing or proposed EU legislation, which newspaper editors are too stupid to understand).
For anyone wishing to produce their own EU horror stories, the Daily Mail-o-matic generates a new Daily Mail headline at the click of a button. Great fun!

One of the questions asked this week was:
Please could you help me track down a European Commission decision referred to in press release MEMO/10/30? According to the press release the decision was made on February 5 2010. As of today it doesn't appear to yet be reported in the Official Journal. We would like to obtain the draft version if possible.

Eric replied:
It appears you've fallen foul of an irritating habit the Commission has of announcing things in press releases well before the relevant act is officially published. It will be published in the OJ L at some point; meanwhile the lack of availability is very annoying.
I've checked the Commission's Document Register and looked at the press release, associated memo etc, but can't trace the Decision. The DG pages seem out of date, and the European Data Protection Supervisor simply refers to them for more information, which isn't helpful.
The only information available therefore appears to be the Opinion of the Data Protection Working Party on the Draft Commission Decision (there's also a general DPWP page. However, the Opinion doesn't include the text of the Draft Decision, so it looks like the only option (other than waiting for it to appear in the OJ L) is to try contacting the Commission direct (try jls-d5@ec.europa.eu).