Search Results for: Hungarian

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) management committee for wine has agreed that Hungary be allowed to make a “crisis distillation” of 400,000 hectolitres of table wine, paying subsidies of Euro 1.914 per hectolitre times the percentage of alcohol by volume (abv) and 100,000 hl of quality wine at Euro 2.30 per hectolitre per % abv.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s ‘rapid alert system for food and feed’ RASFF has reported a series of salmonella contaminations within pigmeat. Italian authorities have detected it in meat from Germany (three outbreaks), Belgium and Spain. RASFF has also reported salmonella discovered in Estonia within Lithuanian chicken thighs, and in Italy amongst Hungarian frozen eviscerated ducks and chitterlings.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A PROACTIVE competition inquiry has been launched into the European Union’s (EU) natural gas sector, with the aim of rooting out anti-competitive practices. If the European Commission discovers instances of gas companies breaking existing EU competition law, legal action could follow.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH and Swedish governments are being targeted for legal action over alleged insurance legislation infringements in European Commission’s regular summer round of litigation. It is formally threatening Ireland with a referral to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over national rules preventing the payment of any compensation, whatever the circumstances, from the Irish Insurance Bureau to drivers in an accident where all vehicles involved are uninsured.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is lending Euro 10 million to Hungarian vehicle leaser Merkantil Car, for on-lending to micro and small businesses seeking help for leases of up to Euro 125,000. The EBRD loan is complementing Euro 1 million in support from the European Commission to help Merkantil Car fund staff training and other costs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved state aid payments planned until the year 2010 by the Polish and Hungarian governments to their countries’ shrinking coal mine sectors. Regarding Poland, Brussels approved its spending of Polish Zloty 6.2 billion (Euro 1.4 billion) in restructuring its coal industry from 2004-6, mainly “financing inherited liabilities”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FRENCH and Hungarian governments want the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers to reform the EU honey directive (EC/2001/110), which they claim is helping non-EU cheap and low quality imports damage quality European honey production. They are supported by 14 other member states.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HUNGARIAN honey producers are staging a vigil outside the Council of Ministers building, Brussels, calling for changes to the EU honey directive allowing labelling to promote quality honey and different types, such as acacia.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE TAXATION and customs portfolio in the new European Commission is to be held by a one-time communist and leader of the socialist party in Hungary, its former foreign minister Laszlo Kovacs. Mr Kovacs, who is 65, replaces Ingrida Udre of Latvia who was criticised by the European Parliament for failing to rebut allegations concerning financial irregularities in the funding of her political party and was subsequently withdrawn by her country at the request of the new Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso.…

BY MARK ROWE
CHOCOLATE sells in eastern Europe. One of the curiosities of the old Soviet Empire was that, even in the darkest days of rule by Stalin and Brezhnev, the USSR imported vast amounts of cocoa, simply because the Kremlin thought it was good for the masses.…