Brussels - European Union states and members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on Tuesday reached an informal deal on a law boosting the amount of renewable energy, such as wave and solar power, which the bloc uses in 2020.

They also reached agreement on a law aimed at increasing the amount of plant-based bio-fuels the EU uses to 10 per cent of total consumption, officials said.

Brussels  - Culture ministers of the 27-member European Union recently agreed in Brussels to award an EU cultural heritage seal to significant European cultural sites in a bid to promote awareness of a common history.

"It's a matter of pointing out Europe's own, special identity," said Christine Albanel, France's culture minister and current president of the EU Council of Culture Ministers. This was especially important for Europe's young people, she said.

Brussels  - The European Union on Monday decided to phase out traditional incandescent light-bulbs in a bid to boost the bloc's energy efficiency, officials in Brussels said.

The decision, which is part of a series of measures aimed at reducing electricity consumption and thus fighting global warming, means that traditional bulbs will be progressively banned from the EU market, to be replaced by more efficient equivalents.

According to sources in the European Parliament, 100-watt bulbs could be taken off the shelves as early as September 2009, with 40-watt bulbs following them a year later.

Brussels - The European Union is increasing its aid to Pakistan to 50 million euros (63 million dollars) over the next three years, the bloc's external affairs commissioner, Benita Ferrero- Waldner, said Monday.

The money is to be directed at boosting EU programmes in the field of education, trade and farming in Pakistan's north-west, a tribal area bordering Afghanistan.

"The border area is very important," Ferrero-Waldner said, noting that educational programmes were particularly important in a destitute part of the country that is also a breeding-ground for terrorists.

Brussels - The European Union's executive is to approve Monday French and Austrian schemes to recapitalize troubled banks after it updated its own rules on state aid, a top official said.

The European Commission has adopted a new set of guidelines on how EU member states should be allowed to rescue banks hit by the credit crunch, and following the move, "the commission will adopt the French recapitalization scheme today ... and will shortly approve the Austrian scheme," EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said.

Brussels - European Union foreign ministers were meeting in Brussels on Monday to discuss a request by the United Nations for the bloc to send peacekeeping troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

France, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, has ruled out the deployment of European forces. But pressure has grown on ministers to act following an appeal from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who says Europe should help reinforce UN peacekeepers in the former Belgian colony until more UN troops can deploy.