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The EU's strategy for growth and jobs must pay more attention to social cohesion goals in the future, says a new report presented by the European Commission. The report from the Social Protection Committee – which brings together experts from each EU country – finds that social protection systems have helped shield Europeans from the worst effects of the financial crisis. But it concludes that social protection alone is not enough to prevent poverty and exclusion, calling for more emphasis on goals such as fighting child poverty and promoting active inclusion. Further modernisation of social protection needs to be fully articulated with growth and jobs strategies.

The European Commission has published the results of a public consultation launched in June 2009 on whether and how deadlines should be set for the migration of existing national credit transfers and direct debits to the new Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payment instruments. Respondents generally expressed support for fixing at EU level a deadline for the full migration to SEPA. The Commission will discuss this matter with Member States before taking a decision on how best to proceed.

The upward trend in the Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) continued in September in both the EU and the euro area. The ESI rose to 82.6 (+1.6 points) in the EU and to 82.8 (+2.0) in the euro area. These levels, however, are still well below the respective long-term averages and the September increases were the smallest since the upturn started in April.

The Conference Board Leading Economic IndexTM (LEI) for the Euro Area increased 1.8 percent and The Conference Board Coincident Economic IndexTM (CEI) decreased 0.1 percent in August.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is publishing a report on the results of a new survey on firms’ access to finance. Of the SMEs that had applied for bank loans in the first half of 2009, 77% reported that they had received all or part of the amount requested, while 12% reported that their application had been rejected.

In 2008, the total number of non-cash payments, using all types of instruments, increased by 5% to 78 billion in the EU. Card payments accounted for almost 40% of all transactions in 2008, while credit transfers and direct debits accounted equally for most of the remainder.

In the EU in 2007, 60% of students in upper secondary education studied two or more foreign languages and one third studied one foreign language, while 6% did not study any foreign language.

The European Commission has adopted an important package of draft legislation to significantly strengthen the supervision of the financial sector in Europe. The aim of these enhanced cooperative arrangements is to sustainably reinforce financial stability throughout the EU; to ensure that the same basic technical rules are applied and enforced consistently; to identify risks in the system at an early stage; and to be able to act together far more effectively in emergency situations and in resolving disagreements among supervisors.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index™ (LEI) for Germany increased 1.1 percent and The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index™ (CEI) remained unchanged in July.

In July 2009 compared with June 2009, the euro area (EA16) industrial new orders index rose by 2.6%. In June the index increased by 4.0%. In the EU27 new orders rose by 1.6% in July 2009, after falling by 0.6% in June. Excluding ships, railway & aerospace equipment, for which changes tend to be more volatile, industrial new orders grew by 3.1% in the euro area and by 3.4% in the EU27.