Brussels - The European Union should lead international efforts to protect the Arctic region from global warming and from the resulting increase in the exploitation by humans of its natural resources, officials in Brussels said Thursday.

In a document submitted to the European Parliament and to member states, the European Commission warned that the Arctic region was becoming "increasingly at risk from the combined effects of climate change and increased human activity."

Brussels  - Money breeds contentment. But greater wealth does not automatically make people happier, according to a quality-of-life survey conducted in all 27 European Union member states.

The study, released on Wednesday, shows that other factors, such as social environment and health, also contribute greatly to levels of satisfaction.

The happiest Europeans are the Danes and Finns, according to the findings of a representative survey of 30,000 EU citizens. At the other end of the scale, Hungary and Bulgaria returned the lowest satisfaction rates.

Strasbourg - Any state aid for European carmakers will concentrate on technological development and on the production of environmentally-friendly vehicles, French European Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet told the European Parliament on Wednesday.

Brussels - European Union agriculture ministers were holding tough talks in Brussels on Wednesday over plans to gradually increase milk quotas before they are phased out entirely in 2015.

Another controversial proposal from EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel involves reducing direct payments to farmers, so that more EU money can be spent on fighting climate change, defending biodiversity and dealing with possible water shortages in the countryside.

The commission wants milk quotas to be increased by 1 per cent per year in all EU member states.

"We want a soft landing before the expiry of the quota system," Fischer Boel said in a recent interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Brussels  - EU governments should lift their restrictions on workers from the bloc's newer member states, since they bring more gain than pain, Employment Commissioner Vladimir Spidla said Tuesday.

"Workers from new (EU) member states have satisfied demand in receiving countries ... without creating any major disruption to unemployment or to the salaries of native workers," Spidla said.

Warsaw  - Poles made up the largest immigrant group in the European Union, followed by Romanians and Moroccans, an EU report said Tuesday.

Out of some 3 million immigrants that settled in the EU, some 290,000 were Poles, said the Eurostat statistics based on 2006.

Some 2 million Poles went to work in other EU countries - notably Britain and Ireland - since Poland joined the European Union in 2004.

Poles working abroad have contributed to the ex-communist nation's prosperity, sending home more than 8 billion dollars in 2007 while helping to cut the jobless rate.