4. Urges the Commission to prioritise the de-bureaucratisation and simplification of the various procedures for public procurement, both reducing the overall number of procedures and streamlining processes in the respective procedures; believes open competitions should remain the cornerstone of public procurement but that they should be simplified, in particular by allowing greater use of functionality-based award criteria, instead of overly detailed technical specifications, thus leaving it to the potential suppliers to define the specific methods, material, technologies etc. to be used; believes, furthermore, that administrative burd ...[+++]ens could be reduced by allowing more simultaneous assessment of selection and award criteria and by allowing flexibility with regard to shortcomings in compliance with format requirements, e.g. allowing bidders to submit missing forms at a later date; notes that SMEs in particular suffer from a lack of flexibility, being disqualified for minor and non-intentional procedural errors;

37. Supports all measures that will help reduce the cost of civil engineering and stresses the need for innovative services to stimulate take-up; underlines the need to promote new skills and competencies to provide innovative services and to adapt to technological change, and considers that investment in new, open and competitive networks must be underpinned by measures taken by local, regional and national authorities so as to reduce costs; calls for public (national and EU) funds to be earmarked for the development of broadband communications infrastructures in isolated, sparsely populated or outlying areas which are insufficiently ...[+++]attractive to providers in cost-benefit terms;

12. Welcomes, furthermore, the new horizontal obligations created by the Treaty of Lisbon to combat social exclusion and discrimination and to promote social justice and protection, equality between men and women, respect for private and family life, solidarity between generations and protection of the rights of the child, and to develop a common policy on asylum and immigration and combat trafficking in human beings, as well as its explicit reference to persons belonging to minorities, which reflects another founding value of the Union; welcomes the fact that the Union has acquired legal personality allowing it to accede to international treaties, the improvement in judicial protection with the extension of the jurisdiction of the CJ to areas of obvious rele ...[+++]vance to the protection of fundamental rights, such as police and judicial cooperation in the field of criminal law, the strengthened role of the European Parliament and national parliaments in the European decision-making process, especially in evaluating the implementation of EU policy in the AFSJ, the increased role of European citizens, now invested with the power to initiate EU legislation through the European Citizens' Initiative, and the obligation to maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative associations and civil society (Article 11(2) TEU);

34. Believes that the gradual integration of the EU's eastern neighbours into the European Energy Community should be pursued, and urges that reforms of energy sectors be implemented as a matter of priority, enforcing the principles of an open market economy and transparency, in particular as far as prices, network access and energy efficiency are concerned; welcomes the efforts made to include external energy security in line with the CSFP as one of the cornerstones of the ENP;

The centre, designed by Ghanaian-born Canadian architect Roger Amenyogbe, is designed to resemble an open book when looking at it from one angle.

Though there is new wisdom from the Ontario court and from new courts as to what a human right may constitute, new wisdom that upends tens of thousands of years of practice and right, regardless of religion, I think we have an obligation to be sincere, direct, open and honest about what the institution of marriage and its capacity is.