Search Results for: Climate change

BY LIZ HALL, in Alicante

IMPROVEMENTS in Portugal’s ability to detect crime detection, combined with increased vulnerability within the tourist property development arena, mean we could see another Operation White Whale in the next few years, its tip emerging in Portugal rather than Spain, experts warn.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON, in London

TWO years after it was launched, the European Union’s (EU) RAPEX system for alerting safety authorities and consumers to auto and other product safety problems and recalls has been accepted by Europe’s automotive industry. This is despite it regularly circulating bad news about safety and other defects, associated with some of the biggest names in the EU auto sector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have brought EU pre-packaged poultry production hygiene standards in line with the EU’s general directive on labelling, advertising and marketing foodstuffs, passed in 2000. Until now, there were contradictions with a 1990 regulation on poultry-meat production that threatened to cause legal confusion, but these have been ironed out by the EU Council of Ministers.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE INDEPENDENCE of European Union (EU) anti-fraud unit OLAF is to be clipped by reforms proposed by the European Commission, which is keen to avoid future scandals such as that involving statistical agency Eurostat. In that case, problems dragged on because OLAF inquiries were kept secret, but under the new proposals, institutions affected by an alleged fraud would have to be alerted about any OLAF investigation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FOOD, biotechnology and agriculture research projects will command budgets of Euro 1.9 billion from 2007-13 under a draft rewritten European Union (EU) seventh framework programme (FP7). Other targeted research budgets under the Euro 54.5 billion scheme proposed by the European Commission of potential relevance to the food sector include Euro 5.9 billion on health, Euro 1.8 million on environmental research, plus Euro 3.4 billion on nanotechnology, materials, and manufacturing.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Joint Research Centre (JRC) could be instructed to use some of its budget over 2007-13 to promote nuclear energy as an answer to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Under amendments approved by the European Parliament’s industry, research and energy committee some of the Euro 750 million earmarked for JRC nuclear energy work would be spent on "campaigning to make politicians and the public understand nuclear energy".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has released further figures on the spending of the European Union’s (EU) medium-term 2007-13 budget, for instance proposing that the EU’s LIFE+ programme commands Euro 2.09 billion in these years. The priority goal of this spending will be helping fight climate change and the decline in Europe’s biodiversity.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has called for European Union (EU) electricity utilities to be protected against unfair competition from those based in neighbouring Balkan countries signing an Energy Community Treaty with Brussels. This effectively extends the EU single market in electricity to nine non-EU countries.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH

PROPOSALS for sweeping improvements to modernise the European Union’s (EU) universities were published in a strategy document approved by the European Commission yesterday (Wed 10 May).

It attacks "rigidities and hindrances" in the continent’s tertiary education and calls for "immediate, in-depth and coordinated change": from the regulation and management of systems, to the governance of universities.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

IMPROVEMENTS in clarity and openness of annual and consolidated accounts for European Union (EU) businesses have been approved by the EU Council of Ministers, the latest of a series of transparency-seeking reforms to European company law directives.…