Search Results for: European Parliament

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has refused to abandon its American lawsuit against Phillip Morris, Japan Tobacco and R.J. Reynolds Nabisco, despite its case being thrown out by the New York District Court. Brussels has announced that it will not only appeal, but will prepare a new case focusing on money laundering allegations.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
FOLLOWING the publication by the European Commission on February 5th of its proposed far-reaching reforms to the current block exemption scheme for new car sales in the European Union, the continent’s motor industry is in ferment. Nobody can be quite sure whether the reforms will go through as they have been planned – or when.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced a ban on the sale in the EU of jelly mini-cups containing the food additive konjac (E 425), which take time to dissolve and have lead to the deaths of several American and Canadian children through choking.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
“SERIOUS concern” has been expressed by the European Commission over the failure of a number of Member States to set up telecommunications and IT networks to establish a New Computerised Transit System, which should seal an administrative loophole bleeding millions of Euro’s in defrauded revenue.…

KEITH NUTHALL
ANGER has been sparked inside the Indian government by the European Union’s decision to effectively maintain anti-dumping duties on exports of Indian bed linen, which New Delhi claims is in clear contravention of two World Trade Organisation rulings on the matter.…

Keith Nuthall
BEER, cider and perry producers from outside the European Union will be able to oppose the registration of EU-made products on a Brussels register of geographical indications, under reforms to the system tabled by EU agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler.…

Keith Nuthall
MEMBER governments of the World Trade Organisation have agreed to embark on two-phase talks to meet the 2003 deadline for completing negotiations on a multilateral registration system for geographical indications of wines and spirits.

The WTO’s TRIPS (trade related aspects of intellectual property rights) council has broadly agreed that a single draft document should be written by early next year, even if this included alternative options.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SPANISH government will have to defend itself at the European Court of Justice against claims by the European Commission that it has broken European Union law over tough personnel regulations, restricting the employment of air traffic controllers from other EU Member States.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Parliament is resisting European Commission plans to introduce a “lightweight” common market regime for agricultural alcohol production, covering common definitions, improved statistical information, import and export licences and the creation of a sectoral EU committee. The parliament’s agricultural committee has asked the Commission to rewrite its proposal so that it also includes synthetic alcohol, which accounts for 50 per cent of EU alcohol consumption.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved a special Tonnage Tax in Spain, where the country’s maritime shipping companies pay tax on the capacity of their ships rather than the profit or loss that they generate.

Brussels approved the plan under its EU internal market powers, because it matches policies stated in the 1997 Commission guidelines on state aid to maritime transport and its new transport white paper.…