Search Results for: European Court of Justice

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission today (Wednesday) announced new plans for the distribution and sale of cars in the EU that will loosen the ties between manufacturers and dealers allowing greater competition and lower prices for consumers.

The new rules, which cannot be blocked by member governments or the European Parliament because the Commission has sole responsibility for competition policy, will come into force in October after a consultation process with the industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SIGNIFICANT trend towards the consolidation in the European Union’s insurance sector has been highlighted by a report from the EU’s statistical agency Eurostat, which has released detailed data about 1999.

In that year, said the study, the number of EU insurance businesses decreased by 8.4 per cent between 1996 and 1999, with a particularly sharp decline in Britain, where numbers fell by 23.7 per cent.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH formal approval being secured for the launch of the European Food Safety Authority, the European Commission has promised to work swiftly so that the new body can be operational by the end of this year in its temporary home in Evere, north Brussels.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament’s transport committee has amended the proposed directive on speed limiters for lorries and buses, so that tighter speed restrictions are imposed on vehicles carrying hazardous goods. MEP’s also voted for Member States to have until January 2004 to write the directive into national law, rather than the January 2003 deadline proposed by the European Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Medicines Evaluation Agency has released comprehensive guidance on the treatment and prevention of potentially devastating diseases which could be released by a major bio-terrorist attack; anthrax, the plague, tularemia, small pox, viral haemmorhagic fever and botulism.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has stated that the mass petition brought by Austria’s far right Freedom Party against the continued operation of the Temelin Nuclear Plant will not hinder negotiations on granting EU membership to its home country, the Czech Republic.…

Keith Nuthall
THE GROWING thaw in relations between Spain and Britain over the future of Gibraltar and its airport, has prompted the European Commission to retable a long-standing proposal to establish a European Union regime on the safety inspection of aircraft from non-EU countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is taking the French government to the European Court of Justice for failing to implement directive 1999/51/EC, which tightens restrictions on the marketing and use of certain dangerous substances, namely pentachlorophenol (PCP) and other organostannic compounds which can be used as anti-fouling agents on ships.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WHAT could be more straightforward or fairer, you might think, than the European Union’s veterinary and phytosanitary agreements with non-member countries?

The idea is that each party pledges that the food it exports to the other – be it derived from animals or plants – meets the requirements of its own food safety legislation and that this is then taken on trust by the receiving country.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ruled that Luxembourg’s mandatory no-claims bonus system for third party motor insurance is in breach of the EU’s third non-life insurance directive and has called on the country to withdraw the legislation. Motor insurance premiums in Luxembourg relating to the damage caused by drivers are not calculated freely but have to comply with detailed, mandatory criteria laid down by law.…