From the official statement:

The European Commission launched on 01 February the EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum with the support of the European Parliament, represented by Jakob von Weizsäcker, responsible for the recent report on virtual currencies. The Blockchain Observatory and Forum will highlight key developments of the blockchain technology, promote European actors and reinforce European engagement with multiple stakeholders involved in blockchain activities. Blockchain technologies, which store blocks of information that are distributed across the network, are seen as a major breakthrough, as they bring about high levels of traceability and security in economic transactions online. They are expected to impact digital services and transform business models in a wide range of areas, such as healthcare, insurance, finance, energy, logistics, intellectual property rights management or government services. The Commission has been funding blockchain projects through the European Union's research programmes FP7 and Horizon 2020 since 2013. Until 2020, it will fund projects that could draw on blockchain technologies with up to €340 million.

The original article with the video recording of the press conference is available at http://europa.eu/!Cd87Jn.

Do watch it and listen to what the EU representatives are presented today. There are some strong highlights of not banning but collaborating on the technology and its consequences.

Is the blockchain future now bright for Europe? Will we see a series of inclusions and regulative efforts when it comes to legislative efforts in the area of cryptocurrencies?

Wow, what a sentence. I am a fast learner of Eurospeak :)