Search Results for: European Union

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio has launched an aggressive rebuttal of claims by French trade union’s that the European Commission’s single sky initiative is an effective privatisation of air traffic management that will compromise safety standards.

The conservative Spanish commissioner said: “Let there be no misunderstanding: the purpose of the Single Sky is not to boost competition or privatise air traffic control.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament was expected this week to risk a political confrontation with the EU Council of Ministers over the budget for the planned European Food Authority (EFA), a move that could delay the establishment of the agency.…

Keith Nuthall
POLITICAL difficulties blocking the agreement of common European Union invoicing rules, that would sanction the legitimacy of electronic billing for VAT purposes across the EU, have been cleared.

The EU Council of Ministers, (finance), has unanimously agreed in principle the proposed new invoicing directive.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
AMERICAN online book retailers are likely to be upset by the decision of the European Union Council of Ministers (finance) to approve its proposed new VAT requirement for books downloaded from the Internet. The system allows for online EU exporters to sell their goods without charging sales tax, but penalises websites based in the United States, (or other third countries), selling to consumers in the EU.…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union ministers have been asked to approve the accession of the EU to the International Jute Study Group, which is to replace the organisation of the 1989 International Jute Agreement, which was wound up in October. The new grouping is due to start work in the New Year, having been formed by a conference staged by UN development agency UNCTAD earlier this year.(2001)…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union has bit the bullet and agreed to ban the sales of imported cosmetics tested on animals, not only where finished products have been the subject of these experiments, but also where some ingredients have been assessed through vivisection.…

From Alan Osborn
The fashionable term in setting up international energy projects these days is “flexible mechanisms” of which the best known is the trade in emission reductions, or carbon credits. The Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, which guides implementation of the Convention, laid down emission reduction targets for industrialised countries but allowed flexibility to meet them through the purchase of emission credits from poorer countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTENSIVE double-checking system focusing on the trade in steel products between Macedonia and the European Union has been proposed by the European Commission. Its aim is to boost openness and transparency in the export of Macedonian steel, under the trade agreement Skopje signed with Brussels.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE RATE of increase in biogas production in the European Union is much lower than that required to meet targets written into the European Commission’s white paper on renewable energy, the EU’s Eurobserv’ER(NOTE TO SUBS:CASE IS CORRECT) monitoring system has claimed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A LIST of environmental subjects that are to be the subject of European Union-wide statistical analysis, to enable Brussels institutions to make better informed decisions about green issues, has been agreed by the EU Council of Ministers.

This data is to be drawn up every year, for discussion by the spring meeting of the two European Union summits held annually.…