Search Results for: Greek

A recent verdict (judgement 1751/2021) by Greece’s top court, the Council of State, regarding the ritual slaughter of animals has raised significant concerns to the Muslim and the Jewish communities of Greece, potentially impeding growth in Greek halal exports. The ruling effectively withdraws a permit that has allowed the slaughter of animals without stunning them first, as (usually) required to produce halal and kosher meat.…

A key political question emerging from the Coronavirus pandemic has been how the disease might readjust relations between this world’s two largest powers – the United States and China. The two countries have had two very different experiences of Covid-19, which reflect their contrasting social and political systems.…

The Greek metal packaging sector is characterised by fragmentation between two multinationals and a larger number of smaller Greek enterprises. This defines a national industry that is primarily inward looking, with few exports. Vasilis Papapanousis, sales director at leading tinplate manufacturer ELSA SILGAN Metal Packaging SA, told CanTech International that exports do not account for more than 5-10% of the total Greek production metal packaging.…

FOOD and drinks companies from across the European Union (EU) are now able to apply for research funding from the European Union’s (EU) Horizon Europe programme, which has a budget of around EUR95.5 billion. This spending will last until 2027, with companies generally needing to form international consortia focused on food, ingredients and packaging projects to secure funding.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission in June (2021) signalled it was running out of patience with Malta and Cyprus over their ‘golden passport’ schemes which allow people investing in these small island nations to effectively buy citizenship. The European Union (EU) executive has long warned that such policies contain significant ML risks, releasing a detailed report in 2019 that highlighted concerns that governments failed to properly screen the source of funds used to gain golden passports.…

BRITISH and European Union (EU) confectioners must take care to ensure their products meet new origin rules if they want them covered by the duty free goods provisions of the new EU/UK trade agreement struck on Christmas Eve.

The 1,256-page deal includes complex and comprehensive origin rules, such as for chocolate, which can be deemed made in the EU and Britain if all dairy, eggs and honey used are sourced locally, as well as at least 40% of grains, malt, starches and wheat, (which must also not exceed 30% of costs).…

LUXEMBOURG may be a small country, but it is big in dairy, especially milk – with its other main products cheese, butter, butteroil and cream. Growth in the dairy sector of this Grand Duchy, similar in size to the UK country of Dorset and slightly smaller than the US state of Rhode Island, is continuing – even during the market disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit.…

Many of European Union’s 27 member states appear to have been dragging their feet when implementing a key provision of the fifth anti-money laundering directive (5AMLD) (1), setting up a public ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) register.  The registers should have gone live for the corporate world on January 10, 2020, and two months later on March 10 for trusts.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has ramped up pressure on Turkey to stop exploratory oil and gas drilling in Mediterranean waters that EU member state Cyprus claims is within its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Turkey’s state-owned oil company TPAO (Türkiye Petrolleri Anonim Ortaklığı) has sent its drillship Yavuz south of Cyprus, notably testing areas close to Israel’s EEZ that have anticipated major gas deposits.…

The tobacco market in Greece, once one of the world’s most robust, is struggling with declining consumption trends seen across Europe and north America, as well as a growing illicit trade.

Vassilis Mastorakis, marketing director of the Karelia Tobacco Company Inc, Greece’s largest cigarette manufacturer and exporter, told Tobacco Journal International that “smoking of cigarettes in Greece has been in a declining trend over the last 36 months [July 2017-June 2020] by almost 7% (2020 versus 2018) while the roll-your-own (RYO) consumption is slightly growing by almost 2 percent over the same period.”…

The takeover of troubled Greek cold cuts producer Creta Farms has been approved by a court, with Dutch-Bulgarian investment trust Impala Invest Group, which already runs food manufacturers in Bulgaria, to gain ownership.

A court of first instance in the Cretan city of Rethymno has formally approved a restructuring plan filed at the court by the new owner, which had been previously approved by the Greek banks and includes debt haircut of 64.12%.…

Swiss pharmaceuticals giant, Novartis AG, plus a former subsidiary Alcon Pte and its current Greek wing, are together to pay out USD345.9 million in fines to American regulators because of corrupt practices. The penalties follow admissions that staff bribed public and private healthcare providers in Greece and Vietnam to choose Novartis products in breach of the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).…

IT is fair to say that cheese and other processed dairy products have not traditionally played a key role in tickling the Kenyan collective palate, but that was yesterday. Now, as the country, east Africa’s economic dynamo, grows a middle class interested in consumer consumption, there has been exponential growing demand for dairy products of all kinds.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has set out plans for a future trading relationship with the UK after the current transitional period, where Britain follows EU rules, expires on December 31 – it includes unfettered free trade in food and drink products, without tariffs and without restrictive quotas.…

The Netherlands-based investment trust, Impala Invest BV, has reached an agreement with creditors banks and will take over troubled Greek pigmeat, turkey, cheese and other deli product manufacturer Creta Farms, according to sources close to a planned deal. While company representatives have yet to release a formal statement on the plans, because Crete-based Creta Farms operates under temporary administration appointed from a court of first instance, the final approval of the deal is expected to be announced in the next few days.…

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has called for a more robust approach to defend European honey production, as bee numbers continue to fall. In a motion supported almost unanimously, the EP’s environment committee has called for the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – which is now under review – to include active steps on reducing pesticide use, which MEPs blame for honey bee deaths.…

THE INCOMING European Commission may seek to further harmonise European Union (EU) food labelling rules on sugar content. This pledge comes from the nominee for new EU health commissioner, Stella Kyriakides, a Cypriot parliamentarian, whose EU role includes being responsible for food safety and standards.…

GREECE’S cosmetics sector showed significant resilience during the country’s long financial crisis and is currently expanding, as the country’s overall economy pulls ahead (1.9% GDP growth in 2018 and 2.1% projected for this year). However, problems afflicting the country’s personal care product regulations and a duty imposed on cosmetic producers might impact the sector going forward.…

GREECE and the newly renamed Republic of North Macedonia have struck a military agreement enabling Greece to help monitor its neighbour’s air space, including for civilian flights. During a visit to the North Macedonian capital Skopje, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras noted the deal between the two country’s defence ministers includes the Hellenic Air Force providing air traffic control services to Northern Macedonia, which it will monitor via radar.…

GREECE and the newly renamed Republic of North Macedonia have struck a military agreement enabling Greece to help monitor its neighbour’s air space, including for civilian flights. During a visit to the North Macedonian capital Skopje, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras noted the deal between the two country’s defence ministers includes the Hellenic Air Force providing air traffic control services to Northern Macedonia, which it will monitor via radar.…

SUPERFRUITS offer personal care product brands lots of marketing muscle, delivering an image of exoticism, as well as offering real functional benefits.

As a result, beauty companies have been willing to trawl the world for new super fruit ingredients to give their lines a competitive edge.…

THE EXTENSION by the Greek government of a concession to operate Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos for an additional 20 years has been cleared by the European Commission, which ruled that the EUR1.1 billion fee charged is a fair market price.…

Taxpayers across Europe have lost some EUR55 billion (USD62 billion) in a massive stock trading fraud – called ‘cum-ex’ – that has hit at least 11 countries, according to a collaborative investigation by European media organisations. Cum-ex involved managers trading a company’s shares rapidly around a syndicate of banks, investors and hedge funds, creating the impression that there were several owners, each entitled to a tax rebate on capital gains tax.…

Dimitris Koutsopoulos, CEO of Deloitte Greece, identifies three key policy points promoting his company’s success: maintain a culture of professionalism in the workplace; provide services that are of high quality to clients; and invest in employee training to implement new technology.…

With traditional universities increasingly using web-based learning as a way of recruiting students world-wide, University World News spoke to the head of Italy’s top online university to see how it has developed a successful model for international higher learning

Enrollments for the 2018-2019 school year at the Rome-based International Telematic University, Uninettuno, have exceeded expectations, university rector Maria Amata Garito, shared with UWN: “I can confirm that enrolments have jumped quite a bit this year – up by circa 200% compared to last year,” said Garito.…

AN UPCOMING European Union (EU) ‘Counterfeit and Piracy Watch-List’, being developed by the European Commission to identify physical and digital marketplaces outside the EU where counterfeit tobacco and other consumer product are traded widely.

Intellectual property abuse is a key concern to the EU tobacco sector.…

The economic crisis, anti-smoking legislation, increased product taxation and new tax regimes for producers are taking their toll on the Greek manufactured tobacco market.

A surge in cigarette prices has depressed cigarette sales and increased fine cut tobacco sales, according to market researchers Euromonitor International.…

A CHANGE in the name of Macedonia’s Skopje Alexander the Great Airport could be afoot, as the Macedonian government seeks to heal an 18-year-old dispute with Greece over the country’s name and association with this historic king and conqueror. Macedonia Prime Minister Zoran Zaev declared at the World Economic Forum in Davis last month (January) that he would be prepared to stop naming Skopje airport after Alexander, along with maybe changing his country’s name.…

GERMAN airport operator Fraport has announced a new EUR10 million development plan for Kavala International Airport, which serves eastern Macedonia and Thrace in northern Greece. Fraport Greece CEO Alexander Zinell said Fraport would upgrade the existing terminal, expanding it by 2,000 square metres, installing a new baggage handling system while remodelling and expanding its fire station.…

AFTER years of slow growth since 2008, eastern Europe’s now mature cosmetics and personal care market has continued to show marginal gains in products sales in the past year, according to experts.

The region’s cosmetics and personal care products sales edged to USD23.67 billion in 2017 from USD21.74 billion in 2016, counting sales in Poland, Croatia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Georgia.…

THE CENTRAL Archaeological Council (KAS), of Greece’s culture ministry, has ruled that 30 hectares of Athens now closed Hellenikon International Airport should be protected from redevelopment to conserve historic artefacts. The airport closed in 2001, and plans to build residential and commercial units on this coastal site have been held up while the council assessed its historic value.…

COMPANIES and citizens defrauding European Union (EU) revenue collection (including
customs duties and cross-border VAT fraud) and spending programmes, may from 2020 face
direct criminal proceedings brought by a European Public Prosecutor (EPPO). The EU
Council of Ministers has approved establishing this new institution in 20 of the 28 EU
member states – Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia,
Germany, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal,
Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia.…

GREECE is planning to make country-of-origin labelling on milk mandatory from 2018, Agriculture Minister Evangelos Apostolou said on 7 September. The labelling regulation bill will be discussed in the Greek parliament this week.

With this move, Greece joins a growing trend of European Union (EU) member states, notably France last year, to introduce these labelling rules for milk.…

THE GREEK government says that it and seven other European Union (EU) member states may launch legal action over the Chinese government’s refusal to ban China-registered trademarks of products falsely marketed as traditional EU-made foods.

A document released by Greece’s economy and development ministry has claimed that France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain have agreed to join forces to finance a case in the Chinese courts.…

Greek savoury snacks specialist company Chipita has refused to confirm or deny reports that it plans to build a new plant for its products in Slovakia. The company told just-food.com that “it is interested in many markets (including Slovakia) and is constantly looking for opportunities.…

With its rich dairy heritage and reliance on milk-based products in its diet, Norway is slowly opening up trade in its dairy sector, looking to capitalise on demand for dairy-based health and wellness products, both domestically and abroad. The country has traditionally protected its food sector, but the Norwegian dairy sector has a lot of innovative strengths.…

SEVEN years of recession and two years of capital controls have taken their toll not only on the Greek economy but also on the country’s cosmetics market, although local companies have been maintaining their focus on R&D and exports. According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority (Elstat), the overall turnover retail index for cosmetics and pharmaceutical products in February 2017 was 58.8% of sales in 2010 – the year marking the beginning of Greece’s financial and economic turmoil.…

EUROPEAN electricity industry federation Eurelectric hews closely to the views of its national associations, so when all but two of its members made a commitment in April (2017) not to fund investments in new-build coal-fired power plants after 2020, the energy sector can be sure this is a solid promise.…

GREECE is to benefit from nearly EUR500 million’s worth of financing from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) to finance regional airports whose concessions were approved as complying with European Union (EU) competition law in March.…

KENYA’S EDUCATION MINISTER CALLS FOR LESS GOVERNMENT MEDDLING IN AFRICAN UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT

Kenya’s education minister has called for African governments to pull away from direct management of their country’s universities, saying such meddling is unnecessary and can hinder the development of effective management.…

IF the Arab Spring has often disappointed in political terms, leading more to armed conflict, oppression and chaos than civic democracy, it is undeniable that citizens in north Africa at least have often been able to indulge more personal freedom. This is well illustrated by women’s smoking habits, with more women choosing to smoke openly – and whatever the health risks, it is clear that women themselves are making the choice to smoke, a sign of social change in one of the world’s most conservative regions.…

TURNING around planes quickly so that they leave airports and get back into the air and start making (rather than costing) money, is a key challenge for the air industry. One reason is that many moving parts must go right for planes to leave on time and promptly, and that requires attention to detail and holistic management processes.…

THE OLIVE oil industry has traditionally been dominated by some key major European players, notably Spain, Italy and Greece, but with global consumption rising, production is emerging in countries which have previously relied on imports.

International Oil Council statistics show how new production centres are being created.…

The demand for processed and packaged food is growing fast among India’s young, often aspirational and fast-expanding population. And this has made Nestlé India target a double digit annual growth in upcoming years. To realise this goal, the company is steadily introducing premium international products into India, such as its impending launch of Alpino chocolates this month (October 2016).…

GREECE’S rural development and food ministry has said it plans to re-introduce mandatory origin labelling for milk and dairy products sold in the country. The measure has to be accepted by the European Commission as complying with European Union (EU) laws before it can come into force.…

BUILDING a career in auditing in what is often regarded as the most corrupt country in the European Union (EU) is not for the faint-hearted, but that is what Nikolay Garnev, EY manging partner for Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo, has done.…

WITH 4.8 million Syrian refugees registered by the UN, and many more displaced without registration, their impact on consumer markets outside their home country has been significant. The tobacco sector has been no exception. Indeed, even before the civil war, Syrians were keen smokers – with 2004 Syrian Centre for Tobacco Studies research indicating that 56.9% of men smoked cigarettes and 17% of women; 20.2% of men smoked waterpipes (shisha) and 4.8% of women; 29% smoked daily – 51.4% of men and 11.5% of women).…

Swedish hi-tech company Ericsson is under investigation for corruption on both sides of the Atlantic, but not for the same cases. US investigators (thought to be from the department of justice and the Securities & Exchange Commission – SEC) are looking at Ericsson practices in China in line with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).…

THE EUROPEAN Commission is taking Greece to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) after the Greek government refused to comply with an order from Brussels that it recover EUR37 million’s worth of illegal subsidies and tax breaks from Athens-based manufacturer United Textiles.…

TAX breaks from the Greek government that will benefit the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) joint venture building a fixed gas link from Greece, through Albania to Italy have been approved by the European Commission. It had to decide whether the support complied with European Union (EU) state aid rules, designed to limit national government subsidies to companies in the EU’s border free single market.…

THE BORDER-free European Union (EU) Schengen zone has continued to weaken, with the European Union (EU) telling the Greek government to boost its border controls or face additional checks on passengers travelling to and from Greece. Reporting on how Greece had dealt with migrants from Turkey, many escaping Syria’s war, the European Commission, concluded there was “no effective identification and registration of irregular migrants and that fingerprints are not being systematically entered into the system and travel documents are not being systematically checked for the authenticity or against crucial security databases, such as SIS, Interpol and national databases.”…

Dairy producers in Mexico have turned to product diversification boost sales and avoid more profit losses caused by an increase in costs, weak purchasing power within lower income consumer groups and competition from non-dairy alternatives.
Beatriz de Llano, an analyst for market researchers Euromonitor International, said average unit prices in the sector rising by 7% annually in 2014, because of a rise in farm gate prices caused by cattle feed cost inflation – from MXN5.90 (USD0.38) per litre in 2013 to MXN6.50 (USD0.41) per litre in 2014.…

EUROPEAN dairy producers are keen participants in the European Union (EU) protective systems that prevent competitors from claiming to sell products made using traditional production methods and ingredients. The systems: PDO (protected designation of origin); PGI (protected geographical indication); and TSG (traditional speciality guaranteed) promote and protect names of quality agricultural products and foodstuffs.…

Chinese travellers are increasingly venturing to Greece, offering great potential for its tourism industry. And while Greece’s exotic landscapes and architecture attract visitors from China, the tourism industry could prosper still further from developing services and infrastructure designed to cater to this growing market.…

Spanish meat producers seeking new export sales to compensate for repeated bans on deliveries to Russia have stepped up efforts to woo importers and agents in Greece.
Business meetings last week in Athens were arranged after an introductory series of presentations delivered there in May.…

A RESEARCH project that has received EUR7 million in funding from the European Commission is working to bring more environmentally-friendly processes in the mainstream of the cosmetics industry in Europe. The OPTIBIOCAT (Optimised esterase biocatalysts for cost-effective industrial production) project, which began in 2013, wants to replace resource and energy-intensive chemical processes currently used in the cosmetics industry with less intensive ones, based on enzymes.…

COUNTERFEIT medicines smuggled into Europe through the post and by couriers were among the more than 70,000 fake products intercepted during a joint customs operation code-named ERMIS. Coordinated by the Greek customs service and the European Union (EU) anti-fraud office OLAF, the operation involved customs officers from other EU member states, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey, said the European Commission.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) finance ministry officials are trying to close a loophole that has allowed corporate groups to exploit mismatches between national tax rules to avoid paying taxes on certain types of profits – called ‘hybrid loans’ – distributed within member companies.…

Latin America’s cosmetics and personal care products sector has boomed as consumers take advantage of their rising disposable incomes. The region (including Mexico) accounted for 17% of global sales in the beauty and personal care industry, according to market analysts Euromonitor International in 2013. …

Asking a 31-year old with little prior branding experience to turn around the fortunes of a retail brand almost as old as her may seem foolhardy, yet the quirkiness and fresh perspective commanded by Dee Poon may deliver the rebranding success the ageing high-end shirt specialist PYE needs.…

A NEW European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) could have to share its competences with national governments for “political” reasons, the EU’s senior anti-fraud official has predicted.

Giovanni Kessler, director-general of the European Union (EU) anti-fraud office (OLAF), told members of the British House of Lords yesterday (Monday April 7) he believed it was unlikely member states would accept the European Commission’s proposals for an EPPO, as they stood.…

THE INSTABILITY prompted by the crisis in Ukraine is increasing the risk of crime-tainted Russian assets being moved into new safe havens to avoid the effects of possible sanctions. With EU member state Cyprus long favoured by Russian investors, and likely to be covered by any sanctions, could the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) offer an attractive alternative?…

AUSTRIA

The location of ECC Austria in central Vienna means many consumers drop by to receive advice or lodge complaints in person with the ECC’s five staff members. A top priority in 2013 was increasing public awareness about e-commerce fraud; a brochure aimed at combatting the problem was published and more than 600,000 were distributed throughout Austria.…

A SWITZERLAND and Greece-based pharmaceutical company Sellas Life Sciences has signed a Euro EUR388 million investment deal with China’s Fochon Pharma for developing and selling two novel molecules for treating type II diabetes and lung cancer. Under the deal, Sellas will acquire the worldwide rights, outside China, to sell the resulting medicines, having organised and funded the clinical trials, some in Greece.…

TOUGH economic times in Europe’s tourism centres of Spain and Greece have depressed air travel to and from these countries, recently released European Union (EU)-wide statistics from EU statistical agency Eurostat show. It said flights to and from Spain fell by 3.3% to 160 million in 2012, with 8.9% year-on-year falls in traffic at Madrid-Barajas airport and 6.6% at Gran Canaria; flights to and from Greece fell 5.5% to 31 million year-on-year, with a 10.2% decline at Athens International.…

DEANS of Greek universities have asked the European Parliament in Brussels today to put pressure on the Greek government not to implement an order that would see 1,349 administrative staff laid off in the months to come. “We think that there should be European pressure on the Greek government so they realize that the measures taken in higher education in Greece will have an impact on Europe itself,” said Helen Karamalengou, professor in the department of philology at the University of Athens, during a press briefing held in Brussels today (Thursday).…

The leader of Greece’s business community has told just-style that the collapse of the Sprider Stores chain highlights why the Greek government needs “to restart growth”. Georgios Karanikas, general secretary of the National Confederation of Hellenic Commerce (NCHC) told just-style that the “bankruptcy and eventual closure of Sprider is another sign of the dire circumstances [of] the commercial enterprises of the country…”

Sprider suspended operations last week (Tuesday 1/10).…

The European Commission is to ask the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to order the Greek government to recover EUR17.4 million from Aluminium of Greece paid in 2007-8 through low electricity bills from Greece’s state-owned Public Power Corporation (PPC).

Brussels said yesterday (Wednesday) that Greece had ignored a 2011 order that this handout be repaid because it was illegal under European Union (EU) state aid rules.…

CYPRUS’ veterinary services are struggling with a major outbreak of Newcastle Disease, which has ripped through broiler farms across the Greek internationally-recognised portion of the island.

According to the Office International des Épizooties (OIE), the world animal health organisation, the disease first appeared in June and the outbreak is ongoing.…

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that patents covering pharmaceutical manufacturing processes cannot be extended to cover the resulting product if the patent was lodged before 1994. That was when the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs) came into force, and it says patents must cover a medicine’s content and manufacturing methods.…

WITH Europe’s economy still struggling to deal with the fall-out of the global financial crisis, its co-generation sector has had to fight to expand, or in some cases hold its position. Tightening national government budgets have meant that the co-gen industry has had to argue persuasively for public subsidies and tax breaks, or even the right to have equal treatment with renewable energies.…

THE ACRONYM ‘PIGS’ to mean Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, was never very kind. It was abusive European Union (EU) jargon claiming that these countries were poor and their governments, profligate. Sadly, the international financial crisis showed that there was some truth in this and the four countries have since 2008 had to slash public spending to stave off national bankruptcy, and their collective road and public transport sectors have suffered.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has told Greece to scrap a meat import levy system that diverts this charge to a fund subsidising Greek farmers. In announcement yesterday (Thursday), the Commission said Greece was breaching European Union (EU) laws on fair trading, because the levy made EU meat traders from outside Greece give financial support to their Greek competitors.…

Greece – the Olympian challenge

Hercules may have succeeded in cleaning the Augean stables but the mythic hero would surely have shaken his head at the state of the Greek parliament, labouring to implement austerity measures against a backdrop of corrosive corruption and widespread tax evasion.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced a series of three-year spending programmes helping meat producers from around the European Union (EU) sell their products at home and abroad. The money funds “public relations, promotional or publicity campaigns” said Brussels, with spending being augmented by matching funding sourced from industry groups and national governments.…

THE ECONOMIC and social chaos that has riven Greece in the past few years appears at last to be subsiding, but one part of the healing process is accepting want went wrong in the first place – and new revelations do not make encouraging reading.…

The latest financial crisis to hit the Eurozone – hitting the diplomatically-recognised portion of Cyprus – is perhaps a case study in how to mismanage a banking-reliant economy and of how the international community can err when applying a fix.

As Accounting & Business went to press, the divided Mediterranean island was faced with the prospect of having to stop all government payments unless fresh money pours in by April 24.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission looks set to propose binding legislative standards for the 27 European Union (EU) member states to follow in exploring unconventional fossil fuel resources amid public concern over the environmental and social impact consequences of the main production method – hydraulic fracturing or fracking.…

A Greece ferronickel, laterite ore and lignite company may have to repay to the Greek government subsidies worth more than Euro EUR105 million, after the European Commission aired concerns they might have been paid illegally.

Brussels has now opened an in depth investigation into handouts to steel raw materials supplier Larco General Mining and Metallurgical Company SA.…

TRANSLITERATION and translation have become inescapable challenges for financial institutions and other companies striving to comply with international sanctions.

Precise identification of a sanctions target named in a foreign language is often difficult, but is essential for efficient screening of transactions that should be controlled or blocked in line with blacklists issued by national authorities (and the European Union (EU)), and those based on the comprehensive list issued by the United Nations (UN) Security Council.…

CYPRUS is under intense pressure to clean up its act  – at least on the south of the island, controlled by the internationally recognised government- in battling what some foreign creditors, with Germany at the forefront, see as a widespread money laundering problem.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

Greece is perhaps the best example of how a corrupt political and commercial system can undermine an economy and prevent it recovering from recession. The country has a patent and overwhelming corruption problem that weakens efforts to reduce its huge debt burden, expected to reach almost 190% of GDP in 2012.…

BY MARK ROWE, MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS, AND MOHAMMED YUSUF, IN NAIROBI

INTERNATIONAL civil aviation procedures are designed to create predictability. But they are not usually applicable for airports in territories that have declared independence, but have not achieved full international recognition, or a seat at the United Nations.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, in ATHENS

CORRUPTION in Greece stems from the top and is still played down by the country’s main media, recently arrested Greek editor Kostas Vaxevanis told Fraud Intelligence after being acquitted November 1 of data protection charges. This followed his Hot Doc magazine’s naming of 2,059 Greeks with Swiss bank deposits.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

THE GREEK economic crisis may provide the perfect backdrop for money laundering. Dr Ioannis Filos, professor of Auditing at Panteion University in Athens and director of the Greek chapter of the European Business Ethics Network (EBEN) told the Money Laundering Bulletin that "it is obvious… that the financial stress is a big threat for someone to get involved in wrong actions/fraud/corruption."…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS, ALAN OSBORN, IN LONDON, LEE ADENDORFF, IN LUCCA, ITALY; MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS; DAVID HAYHURST, IN PARIS; ANDREW KURETH, IN WARSAW; AND JOHN PAGNI, IN HELSINKI

THE POTENTIAL of micro-CHP (combined heat-and-power) for industrial businesses, residential complexes and individual homes is becoming increasingly clear across Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE BRITISH government will have to carefully assess whether its feed-in tariff system gives unfair advantages to UK-based utilities and their suppliers, following a new World Trade Organisation (WTO) disputes case brought by China. It has argued that Italy and Greece have broken WTO fair trading laws by unfairly favouring local companies in contracts securing subsidies under feed-in tariff systems.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

GREECE has clamped down sharply on movements of livestock on the Aegean island of Kos, to prevent bluetongue virus spreading to other islands and the Greek mainland. It follows reports of 10 cases being discovered in sheep and one in goats on the eastern Aegean island, which is just 4km from the Turkish coast.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

Greece implemented for the first time in September a law that allows the freezing of assets in cases of large scale tax evasion, with sources at the Greek finance ministry assuring Fraud Intelligence these measures "will most certainly be implemented in all other future cases of tax evasion."…

BY MARK ROWE

WITH its location adjacent to Europe’s key fashion centre Italy, a highly skilled labour force and low wages, Albania’s textile industry is repositioning itself amid the unrelenting economic crisis that is gripping Europe. A well-educated workforce and widely spoken Italian, English and Greek add to the appeal, according to Diana Cekhodima Sokolaj, president of the Albanian Fashion Designers Association.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission preparing to release calls for research proposals commanding millions of Euros of European Union (EU) funding, offering opportunities for bioplastics companies. The initiative is the last batch of funding under the outgoing EU seventh framework programme on research, which ends next year.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

THE GREEK cosmetics market is still holding up, but with difficulty as the country faces years of austerity measures and recession. Although there have been no major mergers or closures in the country’s personal care product market, the market looks far from healthy.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

ANCIENT, natural techniques for making dyes and pigments have been made available today’s textile industry as a result of a European Union (EU)-funded research project, Med-Colour-Tech. A consortium of Mediterranean institutions, headed by the Ormylia Art Diagnosis Centre, operating under the auspices of the Sacred Convent of the Annunciation, Dependency of the Monastery of Simonos Petra at Greece’s Holy Mountain, identified dyes and materials used in different historical periods.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

It is maybe the clearest sign imaginable that Greece is in deep economic trouble: people are smoking a lot less. With disposable incomes falling steeply, Greek smokers are buying far fewer cigarettes. And the contraband sector is booming.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

THESE are dark times for Greece’s textiles and clothing industry, which has been particularly hit by the country’s economic woes. Speaking to just-style, Vassilis Masselos, managing director of leading underwear manufacturer and retailer Nota Masselos SA and former president of the International Apparel Federation noted that "with more than 1 million unemployed, slashed wages and pensions and unprecedented taxation, Greeks today have very little disposable income for clothing".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND CARMEN PAUN, IN BRUSSELS

THE EUROPEAN Commission’s plans to lavish Euro EUR9.1 billion on developing energy transmission networks that link the energy systems of the European Union’s (EU) 27 member states go to the heart of the EU’s raison d’être: that Europe’s compact countries can achieve more in concert than in competition.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

ACCOUNTANTS and auditors in Greece have found themselves at the centre of the country’s ongoing political and economic crisis, and it is a far from comfortable place to be. Depending on who one speaks to, Greek official data had been cooked either when the country entered the Eurozone or when it asked for help; Greece was either saved by default or managed a controlled default; the conditions for the bailout loans by the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are either putting Greece back on track or are deconstructing the labour and social framework of the country.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is coming under pressure to act against child labour in the global cocoa sector, with proposals being debated at the European Parliament to track cocoa produced with the help of children. That could mean an EU law creating a monitoring system making it clear to consumers where cocoa products risked being tainted by child labour, maybe through the "possible introduction of ‘child-labour free’ product labelling," said a draft report from the EP’s international trade committee.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

OFFICIALS at Greece’s competition regulator have told just-food the PepsiCo subsidiary fined almost Euro EUR16.2 million for abusing its dominant position in the market from 2000 to 2008 had been operating "without giving a thought to competition".…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

LIKE most other sectors, Greece’s book market felt the profound effect of the debt crisis this past Christmas, in terms of sales. Annie Ragia, president of the Hellenic Federation of Publishers and Booksellers said that although the country’s market picked up a bit after mid-December, "that was far from enough, as there has been an estimated a 30-40% drop in sales in 2011."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE FUTURE of the natural gas sector is guaranteed in any viable European Union (EU) energy mix, the European Commission has said in a major policy paper. In its ‘Energy Road Map 2050’, Brussels argues that gas is the relatively clean fuel that will buy the EU time to adopt new energy technologies.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

THE GREEK ministry of rural development has appealed at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) against a European Commission order that it collect from food producers and return to Brussels almost EUR425 million of European Union (EU) subsidies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, PAUL COCHRANE, IN BEIRUT; AND HELENA FLUSFELDER, IN JERUSALEM

IT is not often that a country that has serious energy security issues gets to choose about whether it wants an energy export industry – but the State of Israel is in this relatively happy situation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has confirmed it is scrapping sugar production quotas across the European Union (EU) in 2015 when proposing a comprehensive reform of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). There have been calls from some member states and MEPs for the quota regime to be renewed, but the Commission has stuck to its guns and will continue with abolition.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES

THE GREEK government has launched an international multibillion Euro tender regenerating the old Athens airport area at Hellinikon. The 620 hectare site is more than twice the size of Hyde Park in London. It includes facilities used for the Athens 2004 Olympics and listed buildings such as the former ‘Athens East Terminal’, designed by the architect Eero Saarinen.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is coming under pressure to toughen its action against high mobile roaming charges, as its latest proposals are debated at the European Parliament.

MEPs want the Commission to go further in its action to foist more competition on the roaming market while capping bills.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES

WITH Greece on the brink of financial default, and consumer spending power diminishing, the country’s consumers are less than concerned about looking their best, at a time where they are being forced to cut down on even the essentials – thus posing a challenge for the Greek cosmetics industry.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of a possible Greek Euro exit and default. GrExit, as it has been termed, could have catastrophic repercussions for European and possibly the global economy or it could provide some kind of solution for the troubled Eurozone and the heavily indebted country.…

BY MICHAEL KOSIMEDES

A SIGNIFICANT loophole has emerged in the public place smoking ban imposed since September 1, 2010 in Greece, home of some of the world’s keenest smokers. The government has now extended for two years an exemption, (initially expiring on June 1), allowing smoking in entertainment venues exceeding 300 square metres in size, notably casinos and popular music halls (bouzoukia), if they buy a smoking permit costing Euro EUR200 per square metre per season.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES

GREECE soft-drinks consumers are abandoning multinational brands for local manufacturers, wanting to help them survive the country’s economic crisis, a Greek firm claims. Plato Marlafekas, Marketing Director of leading Greek soft drinks industry Loux (http://www.loux.gr/) told just-drinks there has been a clear switch of demand to local brands, which have increased their market share.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has told the Greek government it must recover Euro EUR17 million from Aluminium of Greece, having concluded these were a disguised illegal subsidy paid via lower electricity bills from 2007 to 2008. Following an 18 month inquiry, Brussels has concluded this support breaks European Union (EU) state aid rules, which are designed to prevent member states from giving local companies an unfair advantage in the EU’s border-free market.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

IT might sound like science fiction, but airport managers really are exploring the use of robots to boost security at airports. Partly this is because for some potentially extreme events, it is better to put a robot in harm’s way, rather than humans.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES

Rocky times lie ahead for the food retail sector in Greece, as consumers are faced with increasing pressure in the debt-ridden country. With rising unemployment rates, which currently stand at about 16%; a 4.8% drop in the GDP for the first three months of 2011 alone; and price rises mainly due to two VAT increases last year – the spending power of Greek consumers has been reduced significantly, and the food industry is suffering because of it.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A CANADIAN-owned Greek mining company will have to pay EUR15.3 million, plus interest, to the Greek government, after the European Commission decided it had been originally privatised on the cheap. Brussels has ruled that Ellinikos Xrysos paid too little when it bought gold, copper, zinc, lead and silver mines in the Cassandra area, Chalkidiki region, northern Greece.…

BY LEE ADENDOORF, ALYSSA MCMURTRY, MAKKI MARSEILLES, and KEITH NUTHALL

GLOBAL olive oil manufacturing is on a roll, with the International Olive Council (IOC) saying 2009-10 world production was 3.02 million tonnes, a season-on-season increase of 354,500 tonnes (+13%). This would be the second best olive oil production year ever, next only to the record of 3.17 million tonnes produced in 2003/04.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has blocked the merger of Greece’s two main airlines Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air, fearing a "quasi-monopoly". The companies offered take-off and landing slots to boost competition, but the Commission noted "Greek airports do not suffer from the congestion observed at other European airports…"The deal would have increased fares for four million European passengers flying to and from Athens annually given the carriers’ 90% control of Greece’s domestic air transport market, said Brussels.…

BY SAMI HALABI

BEFORE the county’s 1975-90 civil war Lebanon was an oil transit nation, with pipelines running through its territory from Saudi Arabia, and export terminals on its shores. Today, the country cannot even produce the electricity it needs to power its cities and is completely dependent on imports of oil and gas for energy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

POLICE in Montreal, Canada, have seized 2,700 photocopied textbooks and digests of textbooks that were being sold illegally to university students, arresting 13 suspects in raids on four photocopying stores. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the total value of the haul was Canadian dollars CAD540,000 (GBPounds 342,000).…

BY MAKKI MARSEILLES

Greek smoking ban prompts smokers and tavern owners to claim human rights violations

Already reeling from financial crisis, the September smoking ban in Greece has created financial losses to bar and pub owners. They claim the laws are not clear and create confusion.…

BY MAKKI MARSEILLES, PAUL COCHRANE

CYPRIOTS are Europe’s heaviest smokers, according to figures from European Union (EU) pollsters Eurobarometer. For those living in the internationally recognised predominantly Greek Republic of Cyprus (RoC) portion of the island, consumption of consumers aged 15 and above during 2009 averaged 21.7 cigarettes daily, and those in Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus 21.6.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH,PAUL RIGG,LEE ADENDOORF,MAKKI MARSEILLES,E BLAKE BERRY,FLORENCE LABEDAYS,SYMON ROSS and KEITH NUTHALL

WATER utilities are maybe used to getting bad press. After all, we all need water, and we need and want it to be clean. When a water supplier fails, it is easy to make complaints and see them amplified in newspapers, television, radio and the Internet.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH,PAUL RIGG,LEE ADENDOORF,MAKKI MARSEILLES,E BLAKE BERRY,FLORENCE LABEDAYS,SYMON ROSS and KEITH NUTHALL

WATER utilities are maybe used to getting bad press. After all, we all need water, and we need and want it to be clean. When a water supplier fails, it is easy to make complaints and see them amplified in newspapers, television, radio and the Internet.…

BY MAKKI MARSEILLES

THE GREEKS – the heaviest smokers in the European Union (EU) and by some counts the world – may start to reduce tobacco consumption significantly, with taxation rising steeply as a result of the country’s ongoing financial crisis.…

BY MAKKI MARSEILLES and KEITH NUTHALL

IT can only be hoped that the Euro 750 billion financial package announced by the European Union (EU) this weekend prevents Greece’s debt crisis affecting other EU member states.

If it does, then some breathing space will be bought to examine the weaknesses in the single currency – and clearly one of those is the provision of financial data by Eurozone member governments.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE GREEK government, beset by a financial crisis and political turbulence in Athens, has another problem to worry about – a nuclear energy legislation case against it at the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

This legal action is being taken by the European Commission, which accuses Greece of failing to implement the latest European Union (EU) directive on the supervision and control of shipments of radioactive waste and nuclear spent fuel (directive 2006/117/Euratom).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IN a month highlighting that many European Union (EU) countries are living beyond their financial means, it was timely perhaps for the European Commission to note that member states also have unsustainable water policies.

In short, many EU governments are failing to prevent the abstraction of fresh water at rates exceeding nature’s ability to replenish supplies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has signalled it is unlikely to intervene to prevent the proposed takeover of Ukraine’s gas pipeline network by Russia’s Gazprom. Displaying his relatively relaxed attitude to closer energy links with Moscow, new German EU energy Commissioner Günter Oettinger told a press conference: "The decision has to come between Kiev and Moscow and not in Brussels."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MISLEADING past data released by Greek governments about the country’s finances has sparked European Commission into proposing additional investigative powers for Eurostat, the European Union’s (EU) statistical agency. Brussels has asked EU ministers to give Eurostat "additional rights of access" to "central, state, local and social security" public authority accounts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CALLS have been made for major additional spending on European Union (EU) energy infrastructure, now a new European Commission team is in office.

The European Parliament’s industry committee has strengthened EU proposals to ensure member states have sufficient interconnected energy links to deal with any unexpected winter shortages.…

BY MIRIAM ELDER

WHILE the government of the Russian Federation has made real efforts to fight money laundering – as documented recently in the Money Laundering Bulletin – the problem remains rampant in this resource-rich country, according to Russian and international experts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has effectively accused Greece of fraud over its misreporting of government deficit figures. As the country teeters towards potential financial default, a report on repeated errors in financial data said the European statistical checking system run by European Union (EU) statistical agency Eurostat and national agencies had been undermined.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) RAPEX consumer alert service has reported a spate of sales bans and withdrawals of clothes with drawstrings, because of concerns that they could strangle wearers. Last week RAPEX publicised sales bans in Bulgaria of China-made J.S.J.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE and KEITH NUTHALL

SYRIA is such a staple of Middle East political turmoil, it is easy to forget that it is a near neighbour of Europe: less than 200 miles of sea separate it from Cyprus and it borders Turkey, which could be a European Union (EU) member by 2020.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ALUMINIUM of Greece could face paying an expensive Euro 17.4 million electricity bill, after the European Commission decided to open an in-depth investigation into whether low tariffs granted by the Greek state-owned Public Power Corporation were an illegal subsidy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MARIA Damanaki, the Greek leftist nominated to become the next European Union (EU) fishing Commissioner from February 1, has promised a tough line on conserving fishing stocks. A senior member of Greece’s current socialist PASOK governing party, she has a far left background, having been a Greek communist MP in the past.…

BY MAKKI MARSEILLES

TOBACCO manufacturing in Greece is alive and well and the industry is looking forward to a very fine future. A ban on smoking in public places introduced this April 1 has had very little effect so far and a reported 6% drop in sales alleged by some retailers has not been substantiated, stressed the Association of Greek Tobacco Industries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MEDITERRANEAN countries yesterday blocked a European Commission initiative to temporarily ban the global trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna, despite warnings that this key sushi ingredient source is being overfished. France, Spain, Italy, Malta, Greece, and Cyprus opposed backing a proposal from non-member state Monaco to ask next March’s meeting of parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to ban the trade.…

By Leah Germain

A group of international scientists have pinpointed two genes associated with Alzheimer’s disease, a discovery that may lead to new treatments and possible cures for the progressive and degenerative disease of the brain.

Working with scientists from around the world, Professor Julie Williams, from Cardiff University’s School of Medicine in Wales, the UK, was the head scientist for the largest-ever joint Alzheimer’s disease genome-wide association study (GWAS).…

BY MAKKI MARSEILLES

A BEER commercial on Greek television depicts Dimitris, a lorry driver stopping to give a foreign young couple a lift. He offers them cheese and spinach pies and later in the lorry park café he treats everyone to a free beer earning a well-deserved cheer: Dimitris is a ‘mythos’, that is a legend – the brand name of the beer.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SIZE of the planned international investment in Ukraine’s gas distribution system has been revealed in a European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) memorandum: up to US$3 billion maybe pumped in. Money would start flowing with a US$300 million working capital loan from the EBRD for purchasing gas, repayable after this winter heating season.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE GREEK government has been fined Euro 2 million for failing to recoup Euro 24.84 million in state aid it had illegally granted to Olympic Airways (now Olympic Air). Athens will also have to pay another Euro 16,000 every day from August 7 until the subsidy is repaid.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CONFECTIONERY giant Kraft has won an important precedent-setting ruling at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to protect its ‘Milka’ mark, for chocolate, cocoa, bakery, sugar, ices, milk and other products. Judges have ruled that Vivartia ABEE Proïonton Diatrofis kai Ypiresion Estiasis, of Greece, cannot register as a European Union (EU) trademark its ‘Milko’ sign, written in western Latin and Greek alphabets, for "milk with cocoa" products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ADDING different alphabet versions of a trademark may not prevent the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling a proposed mark is too similar to a registered brand. The court ruled Delta Protypos Viomichania Galaktos, of Greece, cannot register as a European Union (EU) trademark its ‘Milko’ sign, written in western Latin and Greek alphabets, for "milk with cocoa" products.…

BY MARK ROWE, in London; KARRYN CARTELLE, in TOKYO; RUSSELL BERMAN, in Washington DC; and MONICA DOBIE, in Ottawa

INNOVATION in drinks packaging is more intense today than it has been for decades, with cutting edge innovation in intelligent materials, microchip integration and nanomaterials allowing designers to create boxes, bottles, cans and sacks that they could not dream of before.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

DOCUMENTS released by European Union (EU) heads of government detailing their approval of a Euro 3.9 billion in EU spending on energy investment projects includes a commitment to spend Euro 200 million on the Nabucco gas pipeline within Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany and Romania.…

BY MARK ROWE

EVEN with the technological advances of recent years, fog and other poor weather conditions can still snarl up civil air traffic. But researchers from a project backed by the European Commission claim to be on the verge of commercialising a new traffic control system that will speed up airport movements in bad visibility.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE GREEK cheese industry will receive Euro 2.6 million in marketing subsidies from the European Commission over three years, while the Irish meat sector – under pressure from the dioxin crisis – receives just Euro 234,000. In Brussels’ latest announcement this morning of marketing assistance to sell food outside the EU, it is releasing Euro 17.8 million.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE GREEK cheese industry will receive Euro 2.6 million in marketing subsidies from the European Commission over three years, while the Irish meat sector – under pressure from the dioxin poisoning crisis – receives just Euro 234,000. Other winners included Italian meat producers, with Euro 1.9 million; and Bulgarian dairy producers who scored around Euro 1 million

ENDS…

BY MAKKI MARSEILLES

GREECE is something of a paradox in the tobacco sector. Its citizens smoke more cigarettes per capita than anywhere else in the world, yet its government is increasing anti-smoking legislation and its long-established leaf growing sector is shrinking towards virtual extinction.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE GREEK government may have to repay the Euro 12.7 million in European Union (EU) development grants the European Commission says was wrongly paid to develop a new Athens International Airport at Spata. Greece has lost an appeal at the European Court of Justice Court of First Instance against a reimbursement demand from Brussels for money paid from its cohesion fund for regional development.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PARALLEL exporters of pharmaceuticals within the European Union (EU) can be blocked from changing packaging for selling in different member states if alterations could scupper sales by the original manufacturer. That is the conclusion of a European Court of Justice (ECJ) advocate general Eleanor Sharpston in a preliminary ruling in a case involving the Wellcome Foundation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Commission report has declared as successful the new system of European Union inspections of honey, potatoes, citrus fruits and fish products from Northern Cyprus, enabling honey to be exported from the Turkish to the Greek sector of the divided island.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Commission report has declared as successful the new system of European Union inspections of honey from Northern Cyprus, enabling honey to be exported from the Turkish to the Greek sector of the divided island. The independent inspectors were appointed this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has given Greece a final warning it could take its government to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over security concerns. Brussels thinks Greece is breaking EU regulations by failing to regularly effectively audit all Greek airports for compliance with EU security standards.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) rapid alert system for contaminated food and feed (RASFF) has warned that nuts imported into the EU are still commonly contaminated with aflatoxins. It reported in August British customs seizures of groundnuts from India containing the toxin; Greek seizures of Chinese peanut kernels with aflatoxins; and Germany blocking an Iranian pistachio nuts cargo for the same reason.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) rapid alert system for contaminated food and feed (RASFF) has warned nuts imported into the EU are still commonly contaminated with aflatoxins. It reported in August British customs seizures of groundnuts (and fine corn meal) from India, plus peanut butter from Ghana, containing the toxin.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MEMBER governments of the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have adopted international guidelines designed to limit the impact of deep-sea fishing on species at risk of being over-fished. The rules would apply for fishing vessels working in international waters and they call on international fishery organisations to ensure deep sea fisheries are "rigorously managed".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

RESTRICTIONS on the rights of non-Greek European Union (EU) hauliers to freely deliver cargoes on the last road-leg of a combined transport shipment to Greece have been declared legal by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Its ruled Greek police were right in preventing an Austrian haulier choosing the railhead closest to his Greek customer to offload and deliver ordered goods.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EURO 2.4 million Greece government loan guarantee rescue package for Greek fibre yarns producer Varvaressos has been approved by the European Commission. Varvaressos suffered high losses and declines in turnover during 2007, and its debts now surpass its capital by a third, preventing it financing its own recovery.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FOREIGN European Union (EU) drivers in an accident in Greece are insufficiently protected by Greek insurance laws, the European Commission has concluded. It is taking Greece to the European Court of Justice, to force it to enact the EU’s fifth motor insurance directive which guarantees policy holder rights and improves the protection of accident victims.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ENVIRONMENTAL health officers think they are helping keep people fit and well by reducing pollution and food disease. But maybe the best move the cold, rheumatism and asthma sufferers of Britain can make to be healthy is emigrate to a Greek island, sunbathe (moderately) and eat fish, vegetables and olive oil.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE BRITISH government has opposed Polish government proposals for introducing export refunds to promote European Union (EU) pigmeat sales abroad, despite recent London demonstrations by UK pork producers. Around 200 pig rearers picketed the 10 Downing Street residence of prime minister Gordon Brown earlier this month, protesting at low prices paid by supermarkets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE BANNING of all imports and exports of mercury in and out of the European Union (EU) has been supported by the European Parliament’s environment committee. And in tabling amendments introducing a ban by December 2010 through a proposed EU regulation on mercury by December 2010, the committee is on a collision course with the EU Council of Ministers.…

By Alan Osborn

Greece has violated EU laws by maintaining rights that give the state-owned electricity company Public Power Corporation (PPC) quasi-exclusive access to lignite, the cheapest source of electricity in the country, said the European Commission. Brussels said Greece had infringed Article 86 of the EC Treaty, which ensures the application of competition laws to public corporations, and Article 82, which prohibits abuse of a dominant market position.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ITALIAN manufacturers of Prosciutto and Parma ham, and Parmigiano cheese will get a large share of Euro 1.78 million European Union (EU) subsidies for marketing outside the EU. Italian organic food association l’Associazione dei Produttori Biologici e Biodinamici (Pro.BER)…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ITALIAN ham and cheese producers are amongst the biggest beneficiaries of the latest funding from the European Commission to promote sales of European Union (EU) food and drink products outside the EU. Manufacturers of prosciutto and parma ham, and parmigiano cheese will get a large share of Euro 1.78 million in subsidies over three years.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

SWITZERLAND’S Nestlé, the world’s biggest food and beverage company, played down reports that it had been fined Euro 6.2 million for participating in a Greek dairy cartel. Speaking to just-food.com the company’s spokesman François-Xavier Perroud said he was aware of press reports to this effect, but stressed that over the past two years "Nestlé has not been in the milk market at all in Greece."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ENVIRONMENTAL health officers may think there are a lot of smokers in the UK – in 2005, 24% of adults aged 16 or over in Britain smoked cigarettes, but spare a thought for officials in Greece – home of Europe’s keenest smokers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have backed the European Commission’s move to introduce private storage aid for pigmeat to fight current low prices. Under the programme, pigmeat producers can claim EU aid when storing meat for between three and five months.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

THE EUROPEAN Commission will close the bluefin tuna fishery in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean for rest of 2007 because the annual quota of 16,779.5 tonnes has been exhausted. Fisheries controlled by (Greek) Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Portugal and Spain will affected.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission will close the bluefin tuna fishery in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean for rest of 2007 because the annual quota of 16,779.5 tonnes has been exhausted. Fisheries controlled by (Greek) Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Portugal and Spain will affected.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has told Greece and the Netherlands to remove obstacles to second hand car imports that would make it easier – if they are removed – for fleet managers to export and sell old vehicles.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MORE than a fifth of European Union (EU) motorists would not use their cars any less, even if dramatic improvements were made to local public transport systems, a European Commission-funded opinion poll has revealed. Conducted by pollsters Gallup amongst 25,767 people across the EU, the survey said 22% of those favouring cars over other transport means would remain loyal to their vehicles come what may.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE STEREOTYPE of Europeans favouring public transport over private cars is deeply flawed according to a new European Commission-funded opinion poll that interviewed 25,767 people. Pollsters Gallup not only confirmed that private motor transport is the most widespread means of making journeys in the EU (53% of those polled drove rather than cycled, walked or took public transport), 22% of these motorists would not drive less, even with dramatic improvements to rail, bus, air and boat transport.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MORE than a fifth (22%) of European Union (EU) motorists would not use their cars any less, even if dramatic improvements were made to local public transport systems, a European Commission-funded opinion poll has revealed. Conducted by pollsters Gallup amongst 25,767 people across the EU, the survey said British drivers are around the European average in this regard – at 19%.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced the payment of Euro 650,000 in subsidies over the next three years to help the Greek honey industry promote sales of its products within the European Union.

ENDS…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has failed to prove that the levying of national registration taxes on cars brought into Greece by non-resident European Union (EU) citizens who are transferred to that country for more than six months breaks EU law, the European Court of Justice has ruled.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has said European Union (EU) public service workers are liable to pay excise duty on cars acquired in a foreign EU member state, when they are transferred abroad for more than 185 days.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has authorised for the first time trade honey and fish products, across the Green Line in Cyprus, separating the island’s Greek ad Turkish territories.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
The Poseidon pipeline being built by Edison of Italy and DEPA of Greece to promote more effective competition on the Italian gas market is to be exempted from the third party access rules of the EU’s Gas Directive for a limited period of time, the European Commission has agreed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GREECE government is being threatened with legal action by the European Commission for failing to insist that Greek hauliers use digital tacographs. European Union (EU) legislation made digital tacographs mandatory for new heavy goods vehicles from May 1 last year, but the Commission has claimed in an announcement: “To date, Greece has still to establish the necessary legal and practical arrangements, including the issue of tachograph cards for drivers, companies, workshops and control officers.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) member states have given a cool reception to the European Commission’s January energy package on forging a tough EU-wide programme of boosting energy capacity in Europe. At a special EU Council of Ministers meeting, a majority of governments, including the UK, opposed a proposed binding 2020 target of sourcing 20% of all energy consumption from renewable sources.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament’s agriculture committee is resisting European Commission attempts to overhaul the European Union’s (EU) wine market system, notably calling for the retention of compulsory distillation to ease over-production. It has adopted a report written by Greek socialist MEP Katerina Batzeli, who while arguing that the “public storage of alcohol should be abolished,” calls for the retention, even expansion, of market-distorting subsidies helping vineyards survive and avoid grubbing up.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ITALIAN and Greek governments have signed an agreement to build a gas interconnector between their countries, filling a missing link in the growing pipeline network bringing gas to western Europe from Turkey, the Caucasus and central Asia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is poised to propose that European Union (EU) manufactured cars must emit a maximum of 130g/km of carbon dioxide by 2012. The Commission’s ruling ‘college’ will meet tomorrow (Wed) and its environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas is already stating publicly that EU ministers and the European Parliament will be asked to approve a compulsory cap.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONSERVATIVE anti-reform opinion has held sway at the European Parliament over proposed European Union (EU) wine market reforms, with MEPs approving the cautious report by Greek socialist member Katerina Batzeli. The parliament’s ruling plenary accepted her call for maintaining distillation subsidies and limiting grubbing up, although the decision on such matters rests with EU ministers.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EASTERN Mediterranean University (EMU) in Famagusta, Northern Cyprus is waiting for an imminent ruling from the European Ombudsman charging the European Commission with “maladministration” over its refusal to allow access to the EU’s Socrates and Erasmus programmes and the Bologna Process on higher education structure.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, in London
THE EUROPEAN auto industry is keeping a close eye on the European Commission at the moment, where a heavyweight political struggle is being staged over whether mandatory CO2 caps should be imposed on auto manufacturers. At the heart of this dispute is an argument over whether companies should shoulder the burden of reducing CO2 emissions from new vehicles or whether the job should also involve people like fuel suppliers, tire and other components suppliers and even consumers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GREEK government is being taken to the European Court of Justice by the European Commission over its alleged failure to abide by the European Union single sky regulation and create a national supervisory authority, mandated with tasks such as air navigation service provider certification.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH
GREECE will be one of the last of the last countries in the European Union

(EU) to possess any common stigma in cigarette smoking – if it ever will.

There is a disdain and defiance of those who, for whatever reasons, disapprove of the habit.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN UNUSUALLY tough political row between European commissioners has stalled plans to control the emission of carbon dioxide from cars, with intense disagreements erupting over whether limits should be voluntary or compulsory.

On one side is environmental Commissioner Stavros Dimas, of Greece, who wants to set compulsory CO2 emissions for European Union carmakers, because they are likely to break 2004 promises to reduce CO2 emissions to an industry average of 140 grammes per km, or 25% of 1995 levels by 2008.…

BY MARK ROWE

DESPITE devastating hailstorms along Italy’s Adriatic Coast and concerns over damage from the olive fly, the forecast for the olive oil market for the 2006 season is positive, according to the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC).

"All the information available predicts a good harvest for this season" said a spokesman for the IOOC.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced it will spend around Euro 4 million helping Cypriot, Greek and Portuguese wine producers export to the USA, Canada, Japan, China, India and other big non-European Union (EU) markets. As usual in these cases, Brussels is funding 50% of planned marketing programmes, matching financing from national governments or private sources.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced it will spend around Euro 4.7 million in helping German, Greek, Italian and Polish food producers and processors export to the USA, Canada, Japan, China, India and other big non-European Union (EU) markets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE IRISH government has been formally threatened with European Court of Justice (ECJ) action by the European Commission, over Ireland’s fixing of minimum and maximum prices of cigarettes. Brussels claims that such systems have already been declared illegal in previous similar cases by the court, which has found them breaching European Union treaty commitments protecting competition.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRITAIN and other European Union (EU) countries which have yet to adopt the Euro are to be covered by a newly extended EU programme on fighting counterfeiting of Europe’s single currency. The EU Council of Ministers has approved a renewed ‘Pericles’ programme, which will spend Euro 1 million a year from 2007 to 2013.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH

GREECE has usually been at the better end of any crime statistic league table, but the picture has darkened recently, writes David Haworth. The country is the European Union’s second most corrupt (after Poland), while money laundering and drugs have also made their ugly marks.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel has attacked another decision by the EU’s Wine Management Committee to fund vast amounts of crisis distillation for unsold European wine – this time in Spain and Greece. The committee has approved distilling up to 300,000 hectolitres of Spanish quality wine; 370,000 hl of Greek table wine; and 130,000 hl of Greek quality wine: total cost – Euro 22.2 million.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission’s consumer protection information service RAPEX has warned of four alerts involving car models in the European Union (EU) this week.

In one case, the Greek authorities have reported a recall of 2004-6 Volvo S40/V50 sedan or station wagon cars, because of a potential "risk for driver’s life".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

YOUNG adults in Germany – long seen as Europe’s technological powerhouse – are turning away from science and engineering, with just 16% of tertiary educated professionals in these fields being aged 25-34. The figures are the worst in the European Economic Area (EEA), and show that without change, Germany could face a shortage of engineers and scientists in the medium term.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is taking Greece to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over alleged failures to properly treat wastewater in 24 towns and cities. Brussels claims that the Greek government has failed to uphold standards that should have been in place by 2000 because of the urban wastewater treatment directive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has announced plans to help (Greek) Cyprus and the Czech Republic improve their water utility standards to ensure compliance with the European Union (EU) urban wastewater treatment directive. In the Czech Republic, the bank wants to funnel up to CZK 5,200 million (Euro 182 million) through the national agricultural ministry to improve rural water supply and disposal systems.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE GREEK government may lose a European Court of Justice (ECJ) case, where the European Commission has argued special licences for bake-off product retailers in Greece illegally restricts trade. An ECJ advocate general has advised the court rules against these controls.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

ATTEMPTS to duck increased pollution clean-up costs imposed by the revised European Union (EU) bathing water directive have sparked 11 separate legal actions by the European Commission. It has reacted promptly to a massive delisting of 7,000 official bathing water sites by 11 EU governments, to avoid having to comply with new cleanliness standards.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

GERMAN chocolate company Ferrero OHG has blocked a European Court of Justice bid by Greek food company Athinaiki Oikogeniaki Artopoiia AVEE to secure EU trademark rights to its brand ‘ferró’. Ferroro said this was too similar to its name.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRAZEN political manoeuvres to duck increased pollution clean-up costs imposed by the revised European Union (EU) bathing water directive have sparked 11 separate legal actions by the European Commission. It has reacted promptly to a massive delisting of 7,000 official bathing water sites by 11 EU governments, to avoid having to comply with new cleanliness standards.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced its latest tranche of subsidies to European Union (EU) food and drink producer organisations paying for non-EU sales promotion. They cover Euro 1.7 million on Spanish cheese, Euro 420,000 on Italian cheese and Euro 787,000 on Greek olives, amongst other products.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

FACT BOX

Population of Cyprus: 793,100

Number of students enrolled at university: 5,000 (see text)

Percentage of university students who are Cypriots: 90%

Percentage of Cypriots (excluding mature students) attending university in Cyprus or other countries: 80%

INTERVIEW

OUT of every ten young people who apply for a place at the University of Cyprus, only three actually gets admitted.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE GREEK government has been censured by the European Parliament for its seizing of cars over the non-payment of road taxes and other administrative offences. Noting "a substantial number" of these cars had subsequently been auctioned MEPs said this was "incompatible with the principles of the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights" and "not justified by any overriding requirements of enforcement and prevention".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A RESEARCH and development consortium supported by the European Union (EU) is preparing to commercially launch a microwave sensor that can detect faults in moulded polyurethane before it hardens into heels and outer soles. The Microshoe project aimed to reduce defective parts, which can account for 20% of polyurethane created by shoe manufacturers, increasing costs markedly.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BIRD flu has reached Africa, the Office International des Épizooties (OIE), the world animal health organisation, has confirmed, citing an outbreak in Kaduna state, northern Nigeria involving 46,000 cases. The news poses a dismal outlook for efforts to contain the disease given sub-Saharan Africa’s shambolic regulatory and veterinary controls, and international health workers will inevitably fear the worst.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

INTRODUCTORY PAR

THERE are two common characteristics of the six European countries – Luxembourg, Greek Cyprus, Malta, Andorra, Liechtenstein and Iceland – which possess only a single university covering a range of disciplines. They are small in terms of population and the financial relationship between the university and the government is much closer than in other countries.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

Greece may face legal action at the hands of the European Commission unless it ends the practice of confiscating cars for non-payment of taxes and other violations. Outraged Greek motorists have lodged a petition with the European Parliament which has resolved that the confiscations are "contrary to the right of property and freedom of movement" and calls on the Commission to act "without delay."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A RESEARCH and development consortium funded by the European Union (EU) is preparing to commercially launch a microwave sensor that can detect faults in moulded polyurethane before it hardens into heels and outer soles. The Microshoe project aimed to reduce the amount of defective parts, which can account for 20% of polyurethane created by shoe manufacturers, increasing costs markedly.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

Greece has been ordered by the European Commission to lift its ban on the planting of GMO maize seeds developed by the American company Monsanto. The ban was introduced in April last year on the grounds that the plants presented a "health danger."…

BY TAMARA VANTROYEN, in Hong Kong

BEIJING’S museums have been hit by Olympic fever. China’s capital currently has 118 museums and by 2008 that figure is expected to have increased to 150. A total of US$854 million is expected to be spent on the building and renovating of museums prior to the Olympic Games.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
AIR travel may give you thrombosis but sometimes it can also deliver real gains to medical science. A group of European scientists has discovered an odd fact: that air passing over an aircraft’s wing to give it lift behaves like blood circulating in a human body when it meets an implanted device.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GREEK government has successfully overturned at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) an order from the European Commission that it re-coup a quarter of a Euro 9.9 million European Union (EU) subsidy paid to olive oil producers storing excess stock.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has negotiated open skies deals with Romania, Macedonia, Morocco, Albania and Bosnia & Herzegovina, which will enable their airlines to freely offer services to European Union (EU) airports, including cabotage. EU carriers would have similar rights in these four countries’ national territories.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A THIRD interim report from the Paul Volcker panel into the United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal has bluntly accused its former director of receiving bribes linked to his job worth US$147,184 from 1998-2002. The former US Federal Reserve chairman’s independent inquiry has recommended UN secretary general Kofi Annan lift the diplomatic immunity currently protecting Benon Sevan from criminal investigations.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH
A FEW recent days on the edge of the Saronic Sea, due West of Athens, is all that was needed to renew the conviction Greece is the European Union’s most sumptuous cliché.

In this, the country is abundant.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved a plan by Greece to put 340,000 hectolitres of table wine and 40,000 hectolitres of quality wine into crisis distillation following a collapse in prices. Brussels said there had been a “worrying rise in stocks” and in order to remedy the difficult market situation, “stocks of Greek wine should be reduced to a level that can be regarded as normal in terms of covering market requirements.”…

BY DAVID HAWORTH
THE EUROPEAN Commission has demanded the Greek government repays Euro 23.98 million into central Brussels funds to compensate for recent multiple breaches in the administration of tobacco production aid payments.

This figure represents a flat-rate correction of 5% on money calculated to have gone adrift.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THAT criminals abuse the insurance industry is nothing new for a sector routinely screening claims for hints of fraud. However, its managers have proved far less alert to the risk of it being exploited by money launderers and terrorist financers, a new detailed report has claimed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ANTI-DRUG officials in the European Union (EU) have confessed to being such cultural dinosaurs, it was five years after reports about ecstasy emerged in youth, music and lifestyle magazines before they started collecting and reporting data on the drug.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EURO 4.72 million fine should make anyone mend their ways; anyone, it seems, bar the Greek government, which is facing possible further legal action for not cleaning-up the illegal waste dump causing the original punishment. This was at the mouth of the beautiful River Kouroupitos, Crete, and was only closed after Athens paid many Euro 20,000 daily penalties for ignoring a European Court of Justice (ECJ) closure order in 2000.…

KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has thrown in the towel over persuading the USA to sign the Kyoto Protocol. However, the Greek has committed himself to involving Washington in negotiations to create an anti-global warming agreement that takes the world beyond the Kyoto deadline of 2012.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BIRD flu is still ravaging Indonesian poultry production, according the latest figures released by the Office International des Épizooties (OIE), the world animal health organisation. They show producers culling millions of chickens across Java and south Celebes farms and villages to prevent the disease spreading.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A BAN on travellers carrying cigarettes across Cyprus’ so-called Green Line between northern Turkish Cyprus and the internationally recognised Greek state to the south has been lifted by the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers. In future individuals will be able to carry 70 cigarettes each across the fortified border.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) research network Eureka is developing a research project to extract pure collagen hydrolysates from solid leather production wastes. The study currently has a Euro 1.8 million budget, which should grow over its four-year life, until 2008.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) statistical agency Eurostat should gain formal independence from the European Commission, helping it freely assess European and national government accounts. An EU Council of Ministers (finance) resolution said: “Eurostat should be in a better position to analyse the quality of reported public finance data”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched an infringement proceeding against Greece to “prevent (future) incorrect or incomplete data transmission” about its government’s public finances. Greece has admitted that it made “errors” in its national statistics, allowing it to remain within the good housekeeping rules governing the Euro.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is taking Greece to the European Court of Justice asking judges to order a separation of the Greek Public Power Corporation’s accounts for its lignite mining and its electricity generation. Brussels says Greece is breaking the European Union electricity directive, which outlaws common accounts possibly masking illegal cross-subsidies between two separate business activities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced it will table accounting reforms for all European Union (EU) national statistics offices, following the recent revelation of errors in Greece’s public spending figures. The proposals will underline national offices’ “independence, integrity and accountability”, granting EU statistical agency Eurostat control and inspection rights.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has formally threatened Greece with a European Court of Justice (ECJ) case over its requirement that companies providing local third-party motor insurance must belonging to the Greek national association of insurance companies. Brussels said this could “risk preventing or discouraging insurance companies from other (EU) member states from entering the Greek market, and thus a risk of restricting competition on prices and on the access of policyholders to a wider selection of companies”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GREEK government’s alleged failure to implement European Union (EU) rules on solvency margins for life assurance and non-life insurance businesses has landed it in the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The European Commission has launched a case after being dissatisfied with Athens’ response to its final warning letters.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) pesticide residue laws are designed to prevent food consumers poisoning themselves with insect killer, but that important fact has not stopped European law being as much of an ass as its British cousin. For the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is expected to rule that vine leaves are not covered by European Union (EU) pesticide residue legislation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WANT to sell cigarettes? Go east, young man. That might be the advice that tobacco companies could glean from the latest set of World Health Organisation (WHO) smoking figures. Using 2003 or latest available data, the WHO has collated percentage rate proportions of smoking adults (18 and over), compared with total populations of all but 56 countries: the overwhelming majority of nations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INCOMING European Commissioner for health and consumer affairs has shown signs in a European Parliament questionnaire that he could be as feisty as his predecessor, Ireland’s David Byrne, calling for an EU-wide ban on smoking in public.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH
STAVROS Dimas, the next EU Commissioner for Environmental Affairs, was criticised as one of the weaker cards in the Barroso Commission pack when he appeared before a European Parliament hearing last week.

There was cross-party sentiment that the former Greek Industry Minister did not have sufficient experience of environmental matters.…

BY MARK ROWE
AT first sight they would appear to be uneasy bedfellows. On the one hand, English Heritage, the British government’s advisory body with responsibility for the care and maintenance of the country’s historic environment; on the other, the Marxist-led government of the Indian state of West Bengal.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INCOMING European Commissioner for health and consumer affairs has committed himself to comprehensively overhauling the European Union’s (EU) consumer protection legislation, to kick start Europe’s sluggish cross-border shopping market. Answering a European Parliament questionnaire ahead of assuming office in November, Cyprus’ Markos Kyprianou said the current laws were a “patchwork”, creating a minimalist safety net of common European rights that failed to inspire confidence.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that European Union (EU) insurance laws allow owed salaries to be paid ahead of outstanding policy claims, when an insurance company goes out of business. Its ruling has come in a Greek case brought by a public road-accident liability fund – Epikouriko Kefalaio – against its government for ordering Intercontinental AE, also of Greece, to release part of its frozen assets to pay salary claims.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GREEK government is being taken to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for allowing sludge from a new wastewater treatment to leach into the environment, polluting the air and water supplies. The European Commission alleges that Greece is breaking European Union (EU) urban wastewater directive by failing to treat and safely transport sludge from a sewage works in Psitallia near Athens.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GREECE and Cyprus are taking over the key European Commission jobs in the environmental health world, in the new team unveiled by incoming Brussels president José Durão Barroso. Taking over from Sweden’s Margot Wallström as environment commissioner will be Greek Stavros Dimas, who has served as stand in employment commissioner since his compatriot Anna Diamontopoulou returned to national politics in March.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE RENEWABLE energy and CHP sectors will be closely studying the appointment of new European commissioners for energy and the environment, who take office this November, especially as the change of guard means the departure of energy commissioner Loyola de Palacio.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ENERGY portfolio at the European Commission is being downgraded this November with the departure of Spain’s Loyola de Palacio, a vice-president as well as an energy commissioner. Hungary’s foreign minister László Kovacs – who will be a standard commissioner without the transport portfolio also commanded by De Palacio – is replacing her.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE AWARD to Cyprus of the key European Commission health and consumer affairs portfolio could signal a waning of Brussels’ enthusiasm for tougher rules against smoking and cigarette sales. Cypriot Markos Kyprianou, 44, has been given the job in the new Commission that takes office in November.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority has undermined Austrian and Greek blocks on sales of GM maize and oilseed rape (respectively) possessing prior EU market approval. EFSA concluded they had “no new scientific evidence” of human health or environmental risks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
http://europa.eu.int/comm/mediatheque/photo/commprodi/dimas/p-010324-00-3h.jpg

http://europa.eu.int/comm/mediatheque/photo/commprodi/dimas/p-010762-01-22ah.jpg…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE AWARD to Cyprus of the key European Commission health and consumer affairs portfolio could signal a waning of Brussels’ enthusiasm for tougher food safety, environmental health and consumer protection rules. Cypriot Markos Kyprianou, 44, has been given the job in the new Commission that takes office in November.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IN the age of the Euro-sceptic politician, no one can deny that European Union (EU) institutions have a lot of power, and that their authority is felt in every economic sector, including the insurance business. With European rules currently being debated that will shape the future of car insurance, for instance, it is futile to deny the industry follows EU politics as closely as it does national public affairs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH Greece and Cyprus are taking over the key European Commission jobs for the cosmetics, soap and perfumery sectors, the enthusiasm of Brussels for tougher environmental, consumer protection and animal welfare rules could wane.

Cypriot Markos Kyprianou has been appointed as health and consumer affairs commissioner in the new Commission that takes office in November.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE KEY European Commissioner for Europe’s personnel managers over the next four years will be the Czech Republic’s Vladimir ?pidla, who will become the new European Union (EU) commissioner for employment, social affairs and equal opportunities. Replacing current stand in commissioner Stavros Dimas, of Greece, (who has taken over temporarily from fellow Greek Anna Diamontopoulou), ?pidla…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
POLITICAL change can be like growing seasons, it moves gradually, but in a month or two, the landscape has completely changed. So when the recently appointed European Commission takes office in November, the new commissioners of concern for the farming industry will face challenges unanticipated this summer.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITHIN the newly expanded European Union (EU), Poland is the cheapest country in which to buy a car, although under current trends that honour may not last long. According to the latest European Commission figures, Polish car prices are on average 9% cheaper than those in Finland, the cheapest country using the single European currency.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has formally threatened Greece with legal action at the European Court of Justice (ECJ), over its alleged failure to implement European Union (EU) legislation on solvency margins for non-life and life insurance companies. These rules had been written into EU insurance ‘winding-up’ directives and were supposed to have been transposed into Greek law by last September 2003.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GREEKS may be European football champions, but they are bottom of the league for tax honesty, said a European Commission report, with more than 20% of work by value being undeclared. ‘Undeclared work in an enlarged Union’ shows Britain is much more honest, with only 2% of its GDP concealed from the tax authorities, second only to Austria (1.5%).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) appears to be losing its anger over the failure of the recognised Greek Cypriot government of southern Cyprus to support reunification with their Turkish neighbours, with the European Investment Bank (EIB) providing Euro 235 million for water, energy, and IT improvements.…

Keith Nuthall
THE GREEKS may be champions in European football, but they are bottom of the league for tax honesty, a European Commission report has concluded, with more than 20% of work by value being undeclared. The paper ‘Undeclared work in an enlarged Union’ shows that Britain is much more honest, with only 2% of its GDP being concealed from the tax authorities, second only to Austria (1.5%).…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE WORLD is a small place when it comes to business these days. Increasingly, multi-nationals, as well as medium-sized companies are setting up shop in all four corners of the world. Outsourcing work and creating offices in developing countries is de rigueur to cut costs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GREEK government has been censured by the European Court of Justice for not properly installing an urban waste water collecting system for the Thriasio Pedio area, near Athens. The court found in this way and by subjecting this water to mere secondary treatment before it is discharged into the neighbouring and environmentally sensitive Gulf of Elefsina, Greece has broken the 1991 urban waste-water treatment directive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has given Greece a ‘reasoned opinion’ final warning threatening legal action at the European Court of Justice, telling it to abolish exclusive rights enjoyed by its state-owned Public Power Corporation (PCC) regarding lignite mining, which accounts for more than 60 per cent of Greek electricity generation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have approved an agreement with west Africa’s Guinea Bissau, which will guarantee access to its fishing grounds for Italian, French, Greek, Portuguese and Spanish fishermen until June 2006. The deal involves the Guinea Bissau government being granted Euro 7.26 million a year in financial compensation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has given Greece a ‘reasoned opinion’ final warning threatening legal action at the European Court of Justice, telling it to cease the state-owned Public Power Corporation’s (PCC) practice of rolling the cost of extracting lignite – its key source – into its accounted generation costs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
RELIABLE statistics are of course vital to any insurance company’s assessment of risk, and nationally produced figures in countries such as Britain and the USA can usually be counted upon in actuarial calculations. But what about comparing countries when managing international policy portfolios?…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WHILST Britain’s record on serious accidents at work is declining, the factories, building sites and offices of some eastern European countries joining the European Union (EU) this weekend (May 1) are becoming safer, according to EU statistical agency Eurostat.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE 10 EASTERN and southern European countries joining the European Union (EU) last weekend are on course to meeting its food health standards, Brussels’ health and consumer protection Commissioner David Byrne has claimed. His confident declaration masks a series of problems, however, leading to many temporary exemptions and special measures, giving the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Malta, and Slovenia; the countries between three months and three years extra time to ensure slaughterhouses and food processing plants meet standards that should have been in place on May 1.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WHEN the European Union (EU) signed up to an Agreement on Textiles and Clothing at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) last Uruguay Round that foresaw the scrapping of import quotas at the start of 2005, it is hard to imagine it viewing the deal as a way to boost production in knitted products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE 10 EASTERN and southern European countries joining the European Union (EU) last weekend are “on course” to meeting its food health standards, Brussels’ health and consumer protection Commissioner David Byrne has claimed. His confident declaration masks some problems however, leading to temporary exemptions, giving the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia between an additional three months and three years to ensure milk producers, slaughterhouses and food processing plants meet standards that should have been in place on May 1.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GREECE is being threatened with legal action by the European Commission over its failure to abide by European Union (EU) rules insisting on international open tendering for its schoolbook production. The Commission has warned Greece of European Court of Justice action for allowing the national Organisation for the Publication of Schoolbooks to order supplies from between 80-90 Athens-area publishers and printers every year, without launching a tender.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL and ALAN OSBORN
ACCESS rights to drive across ecologically-sensitive Alpine passes in Switzerland and Austria – plus to Bulgaria and Romania – are being granted to hauliers from the 10 eastern and southern European countries joining the European Union (EU) in May.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FUTURE sale of Greece’s Olympic Airlines is being threatened by a formal state aid investigation launched this week (Wed 17-3) by the European Commission, which has stressed its determination that the privatisation of the airline should go ahead without any illegal state aid being paid by the Greek government.…

KEITH NUTHALL
GREEK and American researchers say they have developed a fuel-cell reactor which can produce hydrogen from ethanol. Scientists from the universities of Patras and Minnesota claim that the invention could be a major advance in creating viable hydrogen-based energy systems, because the technology could be used in small fuel cells generating 350 watt-hours of electricity.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FINAL details of an agreement to install an interconnector linking the gas networks of Greece and Turkey – historically hostile enemies – have been struck, a move welcomed by the European Commission. The deal involves a Euro 250 million, 285 kilometre, gas pipeline being built between Komotini in Greek Thrace, with Karacabey, in Turkey, near Istanbul, through cooperation between Greek Natural Gas Company (DEPA) and Turkish gas company BOTAS.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SERIES of exemptions from the European Union’s (EU) new energy taxation directive have been proposed by the European Commission for the eastern and southern European countries joining the EU in May (barring Cyprus).

They would be added to the already long list of exemptions negotiated by existing Member States that prompted EU internal market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein to liken the legislation to “Gruyere cheese”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have been asked to approve a detailed fishing access deal allowing EU fishing boats access to the Atlantic fishing waters off west Africa’a Guinea Bissau until June 2006. Under the agreement, licences to fish shrimp will be granted to Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Greek vessels, with boats from Spain (enjoying the overwhelming majority of rights), Italy and Greece being allowed to take fin-fish/cephalopods.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE ANNUAL report of the European Union’s (EU) financial watchdog, the Court of Auditors, says that checks made by the Greek authorities to decide to what extent local cotton growers should reduce output under EU schemes designed to restrict overproduction “are inconsistent with the results of checks on individual producers.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) financial watchdog – the Court of Auditors – has discovered “weaknesses” in the EU’s scheme for subsidising cotton production in Greece and Spain and has called on the European Commission to correct matters in its proposed reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AFTER a long period of consultation, a comprehensive directive protecting the European Union’s (EU) groundwater reserves has been proposed by the European Commission, which would force Member States to establish and police locally sensitive pollution limits. The legislation would insist that national governments carefully monitor groundwater quality and take steps to reverse its pollution, where it has exceeded these self-imposed thresholds.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is lending Euro 35 million to (Greek) Cyprus to upgrade its public information technology so that it can operate e-government Internet networks. It is also lending Euro 200 to the Cypriot education ministry, part of which will pay for new computers and Internet connectivity.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ACQUISITION of Greek tobacco company Papastratos by the Dutch subsidiary of Philip Morris has been approved by the European Commission, which can concluded that the deal is not anti-competitive, even in Greece. Even though Brussels accepted Philip Morris would become the national market leader as a result, its concerns were eased by the fact that its existing brands are not in the same price segment as Papastratos’s lines, such as Assos and President.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC), of the World Bank, will invest US$22 million into modernising and restoring Bulgaria’s Stomana steel mill, part of a US$94 million investment programme dominated by Greek steel producer Sidenor. The money will improve the efficiency of the plant – in the Pernik industrial region – enabling it to better produce a wider product range that commands higher values than its current output, as well as improving production methods and environmental performance.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EASTERN and southern Europe countries slated to join the European Union (EU) on May 1, 2004, have worked small wonders in recent years to set up anti-money laundering regimes, not necessarily because they believe this is good in itself but partly at least because EU entry might not be possible otherwise.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GREEKS are the European Union’s highest spenders on footwear and clothing, taking into account the proportion of annual household income spent on these items, according to figures released by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical agency. Greek consumers devoted 11 per cent of their spending on shoes and clothes in 2001 and 2000 – the latest available comparative statistics covering the EU.…

Keith Nuthall
THE GREEKS are the European Union’s highest spenders on clothing and footwear, taking into account the proportion of annual household income spent on these items, according to figures released by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical agency. Greek consumers devoted 11 per cent of their spending on clothing and footwear in 2001 and 2000 – the latest available comparative statistics covering the EU.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development is promoting on-site power generation in Russia, developing plans to lend a major potassium salt producer US$75 million, which it would use to build its own power plant. Located in the city of Berezniki, the Perm Region, in the Urals, OAO Uralkaly would use the new generator to make “improvements in energy efficiency and environmental compliance.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NON-FERROUS metal producers in the existing 15 European Union (EU) countries could see some lowering of labour costs after enlargement of the EU next year as low-paid Polish and other workers move into the higher wage countries like Germany, according to industry sources.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE RISK of a European Union (EU) ban on smoky bacon flavoured crisps seems to have been averted, with the European Parliament passing amendments to proposed EU food safety legislation allowing all existing smoking practices to continue. Instead, only new methods of combining smoke flavourings with foods would have to be approved by the European Food Safety Authority, said the parliament.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is to invest Euro 134 million constructing the world’s largest wind farm, 15-20km off the western coast of Denmark’s Jutland peninsula. The project involves the erection of 80 turbines, each generating two megawatts near Horns Rev, in the North Sea.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank has drawn up plans to lend Greece’s TERNA Energy up to Euro 75 million for building seven wind farms in the country, with a combined output of 144 MW. They would be sited in mainland Greece, Evia and Crete and would replace Greek fossil-fuel power generating capacity.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank has drawn up plans to lend Greece’s TERNA Energy up to Euro 75 million for building seven wind farms in the country, with a combined output of 144 MW. They would be sited in mainland Greece, Evia and Crete and would replace Greek fossil-fuel power generating capacity.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE ‘LOOTING of civilisation’ in Baghdad, with its vivid images of wanton destruction and looting inflicted upon the Iraqi national museum, was all too familiar for those who have followed events in Afghanistan. But everyone must hope the parallels stop there, for the experience of those quietly seeking to recover Afghanistan’s glorious archaeological past does not bode well for the long-term restoration of Iraq’s treasures.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NOW the arguing is over and the dye has been cast, it is time to start work on the practicalities of admitting 10 new countries to the European Union, making this long discussed enlargement work for British and western European farmers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS AMERICAN and British military forces secure control of Iraq from the regime of dictator Saddam Hussein using the latest military technology, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has released a cautionary report confirming for the first time that depleted uranium shells can and have contaminated drinking water.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is threatening Britain and France with massive daily recurring fines – which could exceed Euro 20,000 – over their alleged failure to comply with orders of the European Court of Justice to abide by EU water laws.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IMPENDING enlargement of the European Union, admitting countries that were once part of the communist eastern bloc, poses risks for the western European pharmaceutical sector, as well as benefits from the opening up of new markets, a senior industry figure has warned.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is threatening France with massive daily recurring fines – which could exceed Euro 20,000 – over its alleged failure to comply with an order of the European Court of Justice to liberalise its legal profession.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROGAS and the European Commission have welcomed a deal between two of Europe’s historic enemies – Greece and Turkey – to bury the hatchet and build a Euro 250 million, 285 kilometre, gas pipeline between Komotini in Greek Thrace, with Karacabey, in Turkey, near Istanbul.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FORMER enemies – Greece and Turkey – have agreed to build a Euro 250 million, 285 kilometre, gas pipeline between Komotini in Greek Thrace, with Karacabey, in Turkey, near Istanbul. The European Commission views the initiative as a key link carrying central Asian natural gas into the European Union.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TRAVEL insurance companies have been saved from additional exposure to risk within the European Union (EU) by a European Court of Justice ruling underlining the right of all EU citizens to receive free medical care in whatever Member State they happen to be living or visiting.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE MOST important driver of reform in the institutions of the European Union today is the impending enlargement of the EU eastwards, to take in (Greek) Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.…

BY PHILIP FINE

A NEW American law that shields insurance companies from large-sale terrorist attacks could spark some courtroom battles for ship-owners, as it offers little legal certainty for maritime cover, specialists have claimed.

For the next three years, the Terrorism Insurance Act of 2002 will require the US federal government to cover potential damages for up to US$90 billion (GBPounds 57 billion) annually.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has infuriated the European Commission by unanimously authorising the Greek government to pay Euro 90 million in additional state aid to its cotton producers in 2001-2. Sweden, Denmark and Germany abstained on the vote by the EU agriculture council.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved Germany’s controversial Euro 647 million state aid injection to TotalFina Elf subsidiary Mitteldeutsche Erdöl Raffinerie for constructing the Leuna 2000 refinery in Saxony-Anhalt. Brussels had re-examined the project and has now cleared all aid, including Euro 61.4 million, which had been blocked pending the decision.…

KEITH NUTHALL
INNOVATION is important in the provision of water services, whether that be to prevent the contamination of supplies by a return of this summer’s floods, or to source drinking water for arid areas where ground reserves are running dry.…

BY MARK ROWE
TONGA’S venture into the world of shipping registries appears to have ended in the farce that many industry experts long predicted. The registry was closed earlier this year in the face of international criticism but Tonga now believes it has lost the money it made during the registry’s controversial two-year period.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is lending Euro 55 million to the (Greek) Republic of Cyprus to fund improvements to the efficiency, safety and capacity of air traffic control services in the Nicosia Flight Information Region.

Its loan will pay for buildings and equipment at the new Area Control Centre, Nicosia, replacing long-range primary and secondary surveillance radar, at Konia, and also replacing Larnaca’s instrument landing system.…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler has resisted an attempt by the Greek government to bypass the European Commission in its bid to pay state aid to cotton producers. Greece asked a meeting of the EU Council of Ministers for agriculture to consider the matter as it has the power to authorise the payments.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank is lending Euro 100 million to the Electricity Authority of Cyprus to help it improve its electricity transmission and distribution networks. The loan will help finance 19 transmission schemes and a larger number of distribution schemes throughout the Greek part of the island.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PUBLIC Power Corporation (PPC) of Greece will be able to honour a long term contract with Aluminium of Greece to supply it with cheap electricity at a loss, even after the part-privatised generating company faces full competition in the European Union (EU) energy market under EU liberalisation directives.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has authorised the Greek government to pay the part-privatised Public Power Corporation of Greece up to Euro 1.431 billion in compensation for so-called ‘stranded costs,’ liabilities incurred when the Greek energy market was regulated and publicly controlled.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE GREEK government is being taken to the European Court of Justice over its insistence that lorry drivers should pay registration taxes in Greece to use their vehicle temporarily in that country, even if it is registered in another EU Member State.…

BY MONICA DOBIE and KEITH NUTHALL
A GROUND-breaking environmental initiative is being developed in Greece involving a desalination plant being powered wholly by the heat of the earth’s upper crust.

The plant’s electricity turbines will be driven by geothermal fluids pumped from deep underground fissures under the island, whose temperatures can reach 100°C.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GERMAN insurance group Gerling is providing financial and managerial support to a ground-breaking environmental initiative in the hope that it will be copied and that the company will be asked to underwrite similar initiatives because of its expertise.…

BY MARK ROWE
SHIPPING lines are resisting Australian government plans for greater use of pilots to guide them past the Great Barrier Reef. Shipping Australia Ltd argues that pilots are overworked and that pilots sleep an average of just five hours each day.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been formally criticised by the European Ombudsman, over its handling and investigation of a complaint against the Greek government by a campaigner opposing the construction of a biological treatment plant and sewerage system in a pretty coastal tourist town.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CHEESE sold in the European Union as Greek Feta will be only produced in certain areas of Greece and follow strict product specifications if a proposed registration of the product as a Protected Designation of Origin is approved by EU ministers.…

BY MARK ROWE
ONE hundred years on, the wheel has turned full circle and brands are again at the forefront of BAT’s business. “We started in brands and territories,” said Jimmi Rembiszewski, BAT’s marketing director. “That wisdom became a little lost when BAT diversified but today we are much more brand-centric.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A GREEK renewable energy company has been ordered to repay the equivalent of Drachma 9.4 million, plus interest, of the Drachma 13.8 million it was given by the European Commission in 1985 to instal a 300 kW wind energy converter on an Aegean island; the idea was to demonstrate the system for two years and then hand it over to an operator.…

Keith Nuthall
NOONE should ever accuse the European Commission of fighting shy of regulation, and given that proposals on promoting shipping safety are generally framed with good intentions, it would be fair to say that Brussels at least tries to improve standards.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE LOCATION of Afghanistan’s national museum in a southern Kabul suburb must have been idyllic when it opened in 1931, set against a pastoral backdrop of farmland and mountains. The museum was once one of the richest cultural repositories in the world, home to a collection of the most elegant antiquities from the Ashokan, Greek, Buddhist, Zoroastrian and Muslim periods.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GERMAN, Italian, Greek and Portuguese governments may soon be ordered to pass laws insisting that motorised outdoor gardening equipment used in their countries abide by European Union noise legislation.

Formal legal proceedings at the European Court of Justice has been threatened against all four governments by the European Commission, which claims that they failed to meet a July 2001 deadline to implement the directive 2000/14/EC on noise emissions from outdoor equipment.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has decided to bring an action against Greece in the European Court of Justice over its interpretation of the EU’s maritime cabotage regulation of 1992 and its application to the number of crew on board cruise and other vessels engaged in services between the Greek islands.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GREEK government has asked EU ministers permission to exempt local small waste dealers in glass, paper, board, scrap iron and steel and suppliers of any size in non-ferrous metals from paying VAT. Athens wants to deviate from European tax directives this way, because of VAT evasion and the difficulties of investigating the sector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has accepted a Greek government request that local small dealers in recyclable waste such as glass, paper, board, scrap iron and steel and suppliers of any size in non-ferrous metals, should be exempted from paying VAT in Greece, because of tax evasion concerns.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has accepted a request by the Greek government that local small scrap and waste iron and steel dealers and all Greece-based suppliers of non-ferrous metals, should be exempted from paying VAT, because of concerns that they are abusing the tax system.…

KEITH NUTHALL
INNOVATION is important in the provision of water services, whether that be to prevent the contamination of supplies by a return of this summer’s floods, or to source drinking water for arid areas where ground reserves are running dry.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THREE British projects have won grants from the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work for accident prevention schemes designed for small and medium-sized enterprises. The agency announced grants equivalent to pounds 2.7 million in total to 51 projects across the 15 EU countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EASTERN Europe’s vast district heating systems could be converted from dirty solid fuels to cleaner oil and gas in future, because of a Euro 100 million investment in the region’s energy efficiency by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NEW international fishing deals are being developed by the European Union, which should allow fishing businesses to exploit grounds overseas while efforts are made to conserve stocking levels in Europe’s own territorial waters.

EU ministers have been asked to approve a deal negotiated by the European Commission with west Africa’s Guinea-Bissau, which will last until 2006.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SIMPLICITY is not one the virtues that is readily associated with the institutions of the European Union, so it is refreshing to note that the European Parliament has recently taken a straightforward step to boost its accountability to the citizens of the continent that it serves.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CRIMINALS are still fleecing the European Union’s budget of hundreds-of-millions of Euro, according to the latest European Commission fraud report. But Brussels is refusing to throw in the towel, unveiling more anti-fraud proposals, Keith Nuthall reports.

THE ANNUAL report on the Protection of the Communities’ (EU’s) Financial Interests and the Fight Against Fraud always seems to have been misnamed, in that it usually focuses on how much money the European Union has been losing to fraudsters, rather than saving.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has formally approved reforms to the European aid system for Greek cotton production. Ministers sanctioned an increase by two per cent to a planned 50 per cent reduction to the guide price affecting subsidies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced that Greece’s Thessaloniki and Heraklion, (Crete), airports are to receive investment of Euro 131 million from the European Regional Development Fund, as part of a Euro 1.4 billion injection of EU cash to update Greek transport services.…