Brussels, 06/03/2007 (Agence Europe) - On 28 February 2007, the European Commission published a report on its policy achievements in 2006, revealing that it unveiled 74 headline Work Programme proposals from its 2006 work programme last year (another was unveiled at the start of 2007), leading to an implementation rate of almost 90%. The Commission comments: 'This shows that the strategic planning and programming cycle, focused on a limited number of priorities, is now thoroughly embedded in the work of the Commission. However, this did not prevent the Commission from responding to a fast-moving political agenda, in which actions not envisaged at the beginning of the year have had to be delivered swiftly in response to pressing needs, for instance during the Lebanon crisis'.
The report discusses the main achievements last year like the publication of an action plan of 'measures to benefit European citizens: a Europe of results' on 10 May 2006; implementing the revised Lisbon Strategy; presenting a package of more than 30 revised proposals to enable the new generation of financing programmes to start on 1 January 2007; publishing a Green Paper on making the EU institutions more accessible and transparent (giving direct access on the European Commission's website to information about the beneficiaries of aid programmes directly managed by the Commission and links to member states' websites giving details of end beneficiaries of EU farm aid); concluding the 'Plan D - Democracy, Dialogue and Debate' public consultation in September 2006; and making arrangements for the introduction of three new official EU languages (Bulgarian, Romanian and Irish) as of 1 January 2007. (lc)