Search Results for: Hungarian

Eastern Europe is often a region of diversity when it comes to paint and coatings sector trends, but in the past year, the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted most sectors in a similar way. They experienced booms in DIY decorative sales, weaker industrial coating sales and are mow struggling with increased input costs.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has authorised its EUR181 million anti-fraud programme for 2021-27, with a regulation mandating this spending coming into force on April 29. The new seven-year programme will see EUR114 million spent on preventing and combating fraud, corruption and other financial crimes that can damage the overall EU budget.…

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) financial watchdog has stressed how the EU needs to simplify its spending systems, which would make fraud is tougher to commit and easier to detect. The EU Court of Auditors has formally issued an ‘adverse opinion’ on the audited expenditure during 2019 of the 27-country union.…

THE UNITED Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has proposed creating a permanent ‘observatory’ monitoring cocoa markets, assessing value and costs, to help chocolate sales revenues be more equitably distributed throughout supply chains.

In a report called a ‘Comparative study on the distribution of value in European chocolate chains’, the FAO said such “objectified and cross-checked data” would aid “a multi-stakeholder discussion” at national and global levels on revenue sharing.…

A MAJOR expansion in collecting sales information within the digital economy across the European Union (EU) and beyond has been proposed by the European Commission, to crack down on widescale tax evasion.

The EU executive has proposed reforms to an EU directive on administrative cooperation between tax authorities (see https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/taxation/files/2020_tax_package_dac7_en.pdf)…

HUNGARY continues to be an attractive market for tobacco majors, with its populist government seemingly determined to fight the European Union (EU) for the right to keep excise duties below EU mandated  minimums, and the fact that, according to the OECD Country Health Profile 2019 official data (https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/hungary-country-health-profile-2019_4b7ba48c-en#page1…

While most so-called ‘deep-fake’ technologies today have been used to spread fake images, videos and voice recordings of politicians, famous actresses and other public figures, a publicly-reported case emerged last year [2019] in which this advanced technology was leveraged to enhance cybercrimes such as financial fraud, identify theft, ransom and extortion requests, espionage and business email compromise scams.…

HUNGARY has been making progress in developing its anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) legislation. But the European Commission is unhappy with its progress on implementing the European Union’s (EU) fourth and fifth anti money laundering directives. It sent a formal notice on February 12 that Hungary had failed to pass any legislation writing the AMLD5 law into the Hungarian statute book, and claims Budapest’s compliance with AMLD4 is partial.…

SLOVAKIA may have been facing European Commission legal action over foot-dragging in implementing European Union EU AML/CFT legislation and has been striving to improve its AML/CFT weaknesses, but its general reputation in combating money laundering is solid. The Basel Institute of Governance AML Index 2019 ranked this central European country 109 out of 125 countries assessed, with the highest number being the top performer.…

GLOBAL and regional public policies promoting environmental good practice and fighting climate change have long encouraged the growth of renewable energy production. And with concern about global warming sharpening, these goals – pushed by international and regional organisations and development banks – are here to stay.…

THE TRADE in food and drink between the European Union (EU) and the Mercosur bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay is likely to intensify under a new trade deal between the two regional groupings. The agreement, which now needs ratification, will phase out Mercosur duties on 93% of EU exported food and drink product types, including those on wine (27%); spirits (20% to 35%); soft drinks (20-35%); chocolate (20%); biscuits (16 to 18%); canned peaches (55%).…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is expanding its network of cyber-crime expertise, with a view to beefing up intelligence, protections and responses to online criminal attacks, including frauds such as identity theft, as well as hacking.

EU member states and the European Parliament are to start talks establishing from January 2021 a European Cybersecurity Industrial, Technology and Research Centre, pooling European investment in cybersecurity research, technology and industrial development.…

In Croatia, an ultimate beneficial owners register has been established, operated by the Croatian Financial Agency (FINA – Financijska Agencija). Persons demonstrating a legitimate interest in data will be able to obtain limited BO information, including companies and persons undertaking legally required due diligence.…

THE DRAFT Brexit agreement that has caused political controversy in the UK, but which the European Union (EU) insists is its final offer, would – if approved – see the immediate retention of much existing cooperation between Britain and the remaining EU.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) and Mexico have agreed, on April 21 in Brussels, a momentous revised trade deal meaning 99% of products will be traded duty-free, and potentially substantially increasing the EU’s pork exports to Mexico. Under the agreement, which will replace a year 2000 trade deal – there will be duty-free trade for virtually all pork products, where customs duties now range up to 20%.…

THE EUROPEAN confectionery industry will later this year face hard evidence about the veracity of claims that certain brands sell lower quality products in eastern Europe than they do in the richer west. These claims – dismissed by many manufacturers as urban myths – are widely believed in eastern Europe, promoting the European Commission to act and set up a testing system.…

THE EUROPEAN confectionery industry will later this year face hard evidence about the veracity of claims that certain brands sell lower quality products in eastern Europe than they do in the richer west. These claims – dismissed by many manufacturers as urban myths – are widely believed in eastern Europe, promoting the European Commission to act and set up a testing system.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved Hungarian government plans to sink EUR3.8 million in public investment into modernising the infrastructure of Debrecen International Airport, serving Hungary’s second city. The money will fund security and safety upgrades, enabling aircraft to land in low visibility, while strengthening the airport’s perimeter fence.…

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.…

HUNGARY has signed an agreement with Russia’s Gazprom involving the central European country linking its gas distribution networks to the planned TurkStream pipeline, routing Russian gas via Turkey into Europe. Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto struck the deal with Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller, which involved Hungary building infrastructure to link with TurkStream, which will also cross Bulgaria and Serbia.…

MILLIONS of Euros have been released by the European Union (EU) to fund projects deepening the international gas pipeline network in eastern Europe, a key element of EU plans for forge an ‘energy union’.

One major project is a EUR179 million plan to create the Bulgaria–Romania–Hungary–Austria (BRUA) system of gas lines.…

It has taken more than half a decade for the cosmetics markets of eastern Europe to finally shrug off a long-running period stagnation that has characterised the regional market. Two underlying features – the financial crisis of 2008 and the completion of multinational takeovers in the noughties that saturated these post-communist markets – lay behind the extended period of slow, low or non-existent growth.…

THE EUROPEAN Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has announced new reforms to the European Union’s (EU) new biocidal products regulation, clarifying difficulties discovered in the original legislation, in force from last September (2013). Widely used in anti-microbial and insecticide-impregnated knitted fabrics, a new amending regulation for biocidal products in force from April 25 (334/2014) includes a new definition of biocidal product families by risk and efficacy.…

The European Commission unveiled its long-anticipated new energy strategy on February 25, heralding the creation of an ‘Energy Union’, with a proposed influential European Union (EU) electricity regulator. The announcement also outlined how the European Commission wants to achieve the European Council goal set last of October (2014) for all member states to have interconnection capacity, enabling the export of at least 10% of their domestically-produced electricity.…

A European Parliament committee yesterday (Dec 3) vowed to swiftly approve any formal proposal for mandatory labelling for processed meats, claiming 90% of its members favour such a European Union (EU) law . Parliamentarians of all stripes claimed a comfortable majority of European Union consumers want to know where their meat comes from and what it consists of following the horsemeat scandal of two years ago.…

A Maltese socialist – nominated as the new environment, maritime affairs and fisheries Commissioner of the European Union (EU) – has indicated that he would not move to ban the use of cyanide in gold, silver, platinum and cadmium production, should he be confirmed in his new job.…

WHEN American personal care product giant Johnson & Johnson opened its shared-services centre in Prague during 2006, it employed 12 people and provided only in-group procure-to-pay services. Currently this Johnson & Johnson finance centre is the largest of the five centres the company operates worldwide in terms of staff numbers as well as the scope of services it provides to internal business partners.…

THE EUROPEAN Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has announced new reforms to the European Union’s (EU) new biocidal products regulation, clarifying difficulties discovered in the original legislation, in force from last September (2013). Widely used in anti-microbial and insecticide-impregnated knitted fabrics, a new amending regulation for biocidal products in force from April 25 (334/2014) includes a new definition of biocidal product families by risk and efficacy.…

Pressure is growing on Hungary’s government to change the country’s tobacco excise laws, which can block sales of distributed products, with the European Commission and the Hungarian tobacco industry calling for the policy to be changed.

Zoltán Pankucsi, deputy state secretary for accounting and taxation at Hungary’s ministry for national economy, confirmed to Tobacco Journal International that Hungary levies excise duties on tobacco by means of tax markings on packaging.…

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.…

THE EUROPEAN Parliament’s influential environment committee has backed proposed changes to the European Union (EU) packaging and packaging waste directive designed to reduce the use of lightweight plastic carrier bags. MEPs agreed that the law should tell EU member states to reduce by 80% the consumption of bags thinner than 50 microns by 2019, having halved their use by 2017.…

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has approved a new target for CO2 emissions from cars in the European Union (EU) of 95g CO2/km in 2021, but the European Commission is already plotting tighter controls. Welcoming MEP’s vote, European Union (EU) climate action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said: “It is clear that long-term clarity is important for the car industry.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has released official guidance on how to protect the environment when ‘fracking’ for shale gas. It has given European Union (EU) member states 18 months to follow its suggestions, saying it will “review the effectiveness” of this voluntary approach after this deadline.…

The European Parliament motion backing the European Union’s (EU) steel action plan has passed in a resolution in Strasbourg last night (Tuesday). However, its author – Hungarian conservative András Gyürk – believes real public money needs to be spent to prevent EU steel production moving overseas.…

THE COUNTRIES of eastern and central Europe that came in from the cold in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall have felt the economic chill in recent years, with recession affecting the fortunes of the cosmetics industry.

Across a wide range of countries – for instance – Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia – the retail value of the beauty and personal care products market has remained at around Euro EUR10.70 billion in both 2012 and (according to provisional data for these five countries by market analysts Euromonitor International) in 2013; and is forecast to grow to EUR10.85 billion in 2014.…

BY MARK ROWE; JONATHAN DYSON, in Zagreb; and ANDREW KURETH, in Warsaw

THE COUNTRIES of eastern and central Europe that came in from the cold in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall have felt the economic chill in recent years, with recession affecting the fortunes of the cosmetics industry.…

The group of experts charged with overseeing the European Union’s (EU) steel action plan has been meeting only annually, a European Parliament draft motion has claimed. Coordinated by Hungarian conservative András Gyürk for a debate in Strasbourg this Tuesday, the motion welcomes the action plan, released last June (2013), as “an important element to prevent the further relocation of steel production outside of Europe.”…

OIL, gas and petrochemical companies can bid for an increased pot of European Union (EU) funding for research projects under the new Horizon 2020 programme, which was approved in November. It has an overall budget exceeding Euro EUR78.6 billion and will run from January to 2020.…

EXPORT refunds paid by the European Union (EU) to bovine livestock exporters, ahead of a suspension of these subsidies last September (2012), were dwindling and dominated by four countries, the latest data from the European Commission has revealed.

Brussels paid out Euro EUR5.7 million on such sales in 2012, said the Commission, down from EUR9.6 million in 2011, and around EUR10 million in 2008 and 2009 (EUR8.6 million was paid out in 2010).…

AFTER 10 hard years of negotiations, Croatia finally became the European Union (EU)’s 28th member state on July 1, a move that will inevitably open its financial and related services markets to major EU companies and partnerships. One key issue for European financial professionals has been, and will be, the extent to which Croatian business and government is clean.…

THE CAPACITY of Moscow airports will increase nearly threefold during the
next three to four years under a Russian Rubles RUB600 billion (USD18.7 billion) plan unveiled by the Russian ministry of transport at a June 15 meeting of the State Council, which advises President Vladimir Putin.…

ON July 1, Croatia finally became the European Union’s 28th member state – a long-awaited accession following 10 hard years of negotiations. Many of the questions that surrounded Croatia’s eligibility centred on the country’s level of commercial crime and corruption, including money laundering, and concerns about its ability to tackle such problems effectively.…

Concerns about commercial crime, corruption and fraud remained high in Croatia as it joined the European Union (EU) on July 1. And while progress has been made, both the EU and many within Croatia admit that the country must work harder to combat such problems.…

A EUROPEAN Union (EU)-backed research project has developed new ways of applying patterns within deposited layers of nanoparticles that can be adjusted to create special properties such as super-waterproofing. Hungarian and Finnish researchers working for the CompNanoALD have developed atomic layer deposition (ALD) techniques, which can “deposit one atomic layer of a material at a time in a step-wise manner”, said Dr Imre Miklós Szilágyi, of Budapest University of Technology and Economics, in a European Commission note.…

European Union (EU) police agency Europol says it has broken a sophisticated value-added tax (VAT) fraud, involving trading scrap metal between Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The scam involves so-called ‘carousel’ or ‘missing-trader’ fraud where scrap has been sold in a chain or buyers, with VAT being charged on each sale.…

BY MARK ROWE

ANYONE looking for straightforward conclusions about the impact of the recession on eastern Europe’s cosmetics market is likely to be disappointed. Some countries, such as Poland, fared relatively well in the crisis, while others such as Latvia faced punishing economic contraction, therefore signals coming from the region in these uncertain and ever-changing times, are hugely varied.…

BY MARK ROWE

TO describe recent times as difficult for the eastern European cosmetics industry would be something of an understatement. Since 2010, some countries have experienced dizzying declines in production and sales that indicated the industry was more or less in tune with the wider economic mood across the region.…

BY ZLATKO CONKAS

THE TURKS used to run the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as colonial overlords – now with the country enjoying its independence since 1991, its government has shown its confidence in welcoming a Turkish company TAV Airports Holding to run its two international airports.…

BY ZLATKO CONKAS, IN SERBIA

AS Russian energy giant Gazprom begins construction work on the South Stream pipeline project by the end of this year for an operational launch in 2015, its final route across the Balkans has yet to be decided and governments are jostling for position.…

BY MARK ROWE

WHEN the European Union (EU) set up the world’s first carbon trading market in 2001, the Emissions Trading System (ETS), advocates heralded a new dawn: carbon pollution could be brought under control in a way that benefited the environment while not damaging industrial interests.…

BY MARK ROWE

WHEN the European Union (EU) set up the world’s first carbon trading market in 2001, the Emissions Trading System (ETS), advocates heralded a new dawn: carbon pollution could be brought under control in a way that benefited the environment while not damaging industrial interests.…

BY MARK ROWE, IN LONDON; ZLATKO CONKAS, IN NOVI SAD, SERBIA; MIKE STEIN, IN PRAGUE; AND BLAKE BERRY, IN WARSAW

DURING the spring of 2011, the prevailing view throughout eastern Europe’s personal care and toiletries market was that while business was not exactly buoyant, the worst of the recession was over – then came the credit crises and the faltering Euro.…

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 KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is staging a re-evaluation of the sweetener aspartame after it agreed to bring forward from 2020 a scheduled inquiry, despite recent scientific assessments failing to reveal fresh concerns about the sweetener.

Indeed, EFSA reviewed the latest studies on aspartame only in April, but accepted a European Commission request for a new study.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) could target its multi-billion Euro international aid budget at more overseas water utility development projects if the EU’s current Hungarian presidency gets its way. A meeting of the EU Council of Ministers for foreign affairs on Tuesday (24-5) debated a detailed plan drafted by Budapest.…

BY ZLATKO ?ONKA?

GENERAL Motors (GM) Europe unit Opel/Vauxhall is constructing a new engine plant in the western Hungarian city of Szentgotthárd, aiming to boost the company’s growing share of the south-east Europe market. Opel managers have said they want this Euro EUR500 million investment (US dollar USD713.780 million) to help the company grow its 5.5% market share (in 2010 – 35,456 cars) of the regional market, making it the sixth most popular marque (up from eighth in 2009).…

BY ALAN OSBORN

Big European food retailers have been delighted with a new ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) slapping down regulations imposed by the Spanish government to restrict the location and operations of hypermarkets in Catalonia. The court, whose decisions are legal precedents throughout every country and region in the European Union (EU), said Spain had failed to fulfill obligations imposed by the "freedom of establishment" provision of the EU treaties.…

BY MARK ROWE and KEITH NUTHALL

HUNGARY’S strategic location in central Europe, a cash-based economy, and a well-developed financial services industry, makes it important to both pan-European anti-money laundering enforcement, and indeed, to criminals themselves.

Generally, the nature of money laundering that goes on in Hungary can be serious but stops short of funnelling funds to terrorist organisations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

37.40

INTELLIGENCE advice teams are to be posted at international airports in seven west African countries, to boost the number and effectiveness of illicit drugs seizures at their terminals. This ‘Aircop’ initiative has been organised by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the World Customs Organisation (WCO) and Interpol.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has unveiled its gas infrastructure investment priorities for the next 20 years. They are pipeline and other transit projects delivering gas directly from the Caspian Sea to Europe; integrating the Baltic gas market, connecting it to central and southeast Europe; and boosting north-south infrastructure in western Europe to remove internal bottlenecks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is threatening Hungary with legal action at the European Court of Justice (ECJ), arguing it is failing to provide fair access to groundhandling contracts at Budapest Airport. Brussels has said in a communiqué that the Hungarian government is breaching the EU groundhandling directive (96/67/EC) by unfairly limiting the number of potential groundhandling service providers at Budapest, and "failing to organise appropriate selection procedures".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS sector has long been the focus of some the most direct market intervention by the European Union (EU), and it would seem that the EU still has an appetite for such initiatives, consulting on new guidance on third party access to fixed networks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

COMPREHENSIVE action across the European Union (EU) is needed to fight bee diseases that are threatening food supplies through lack of pollination, the European Parliament’s agriculture committee has said. In a report approved today (Thursday), MEPs warned rising bee mortality could devastate EU food production, as an estimated 76% of food production in Europe depends on bee pollination.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has today released its long-awaited proposed nuclear waste directive, which would tell European Union (EU) member states to develop plans to store radioactive waste in safe repositories. The proposal however dodges the issue of whether to force governments to use deep underground repositories, even though it is clearly Brussels’ favoured option.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is to combine forces with the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in the coming year to examine offshore oil and gas safety in the light of the Gulf of Mexico spill.

At an ‘Energy Dialogue’ meeting in Brussels, senior OPEC and EU officials agreed to organise an international roundtable on minimising offshore safety risks early 2011, which could spark new regulations.…

BY ERIC LYMAN and KEITH NUTHALL

THE EXECUTIVE secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) Yvo de Boer will switch his attentions to the private sector after standing down from his job on July 1. He will be joining the consultancy group KPMG as global adviser on climate and sustainability and working with a number of universities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AS a new European Union (EU) energy Commissioner takes office for the next five years, EU member states are stalling over a plan to inject Euro 50 billion into European energy research budgets over the next decade. The Strategic Energy Technology (SET) plan released by the previous European Commission last October would involve a massive expansion of such spending from 2013 to 2019, but national governments have signalled nervousness.…

BY ZSOLT BALLA

IT may not be the easiest way to make a living – as it nowhere is – but even amidst the ongoing economic crisis, Hungarian truck drivers seem better off than their average east European peers. Those who work hard can make decent money, and, given the usual pessimist attitude of Hungarian people, drivers talking to Commercial Motor were surprisingly positive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WHITE knight deal – sweetened by around Euro 4.5 billion (US$6.5 billion) in German government subsidies – to transfer control of Opel-Vauxhall to a Canadian-Russian consortium, is under fire. Britain’s business secretary Lord Mandelson has advised that alternative agreements are sought to save the ailing GM-controlled car maker, calling for a "commercially-based outcome rather than one determined by political intervention and subsidies".…

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 Zsolt Balla

It was just over a year ago, on 15 September, 2008, when the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), the EU’s flagship initiative to boost Europe’s competitiveness on a highly globalised battlefield of development and innovation, held its constituent meeting in Budapest, Hungary, its future headquarters.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

INTERNATIONAL talks are underway to secure Ukraine funding to pay Russia for natural gas to ensure deliveries to Europe can be guaranteed this winter.

The European Commission, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) have been meeting with Russian and Ukraine officials to head off a repeat of last winter’s supply crisis.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE UKRAINE government has secured a major loan package designed to secure its reliability as a winter suppler of gas to Europe through improving its gas storage and distribution. The European Commission welcomed the deal, which it helped broker.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) RAPEX consumer alert service has warned of another dangerous candle product designed to look like a sweet treat: in this case nine candles in various forms imitating pastries. They were made in China and were detected and withdrawn from sale by Hungarian consumer authorities.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

The European Commission has added three new items to its lists of quality food products with protected designation of origin (PDO) and protected geographical indication (PGI) rights, namely Hungarian salami – "Budapesti téliszalámi," Polish cheese – "Wielkopolsky ser sma?ony"…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE DEPENDENCE of the European Union (EU) on imports to meet oil supply needs will rise to 95% by 2030, a European Parliament report has claimed. This will expose the EU to strategic dangers through buying oil from unstable or potentially hostile countries in the Middle East and from Russia, it warned.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced it wants Euro 3.5 billion of the general European Union (EU) economic recovery plan it announced in November spent on energy investment. It has proposed spending Euro 1.75 billion on gas and electricity interconnection projects; Euro 500 million on offshore wind power; and Euro 1.25 billion on carbon capture and storage.…

BY MARK ROWE

FOLLOWING the extended frenzy that saw multinational companies move into eastern Europe in the 1990s and early 2000s, several markets in the region are approaching the maturity of western Europe. And while Russia lags behind in general terms, the micro-economies of Moscow and St Petersburg are similarly saturated by high-end brands and developed consumer choice and tastes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE HUNGARIAN and Romanian governments have agreed to connect their gas distribution systems, a move hailed by the European Commission as being important for eastern Europe security of energy supplies. Brussels is particularly happy the network operators of the two countries (Hungary’s FGSZ Ltd and Romania’s Transgaz will build the pipeline link, without any third country assistance, (such as Russia).…

BY CHRIS JONES

EUROPEAN Union (EU) telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding faces significant opposition to her proposals for increasing the European Commission’s power of veto over national telecoms regulations (NRAs) and the creation of a new Europe-wide regulatory agency.

NRAs in the 27 member states, which together form the European Regulators’ Group (ERG), have made it quite clear that any attempt by Reding to undermine their authority will face fierce resistance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FORMAL negotiations between the European Union (EU) and Russia over renewing the 1997 partnership and cooperation agreement between them are under way at last: formal talks started in Brussels on July 4, following a successful EU-Russia summit at the Siberian oil town of Khanty-Mansiysk..…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MERCEDES-BENZ can now push ahead with building a new manufacturing plant in Hungary, having secured permission from the European Commission to receive Euro 111.5 million in cash and tax breaks from the Hungarian government. The money will help Mercedes-Benz Hungary meet the Euro 800 million cost of building a plant in Kecskemét, the Dél-Alföld region.…

By Alan Osborn

Budapest has been chosen as the site of the new European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), beating four other contenders (Wroclaw in Poland, Sant Cugat del Vallès near Barcelona in Spain, Jena in Germany, and Bratislava/Vienna) for the prize.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) advisory ruling appears to have ruled out a legal reprieve for Italian wine producers in Venice and neighbouring Friulia to continue using the contested name ‘Tocai’ to sell their wines. The Italians have already lost cases at the ECJ over the issue, after they challenged a European Commission decision that the name was illegal under European Union (EU) regulations, because it could be confused with longer established Hungarian Tokaj wines.…

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

A EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) advisory ruling appears to have ruled out any chance of a legal reprieve for Italian wine producers in Venice and neighbouring Friulia to continue using the contested name ‘Tocai’ to sell their wines.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels

WITH the launch of the long-debated Galileo orbiting satellite system now largely secure, attention is being turned to its varied applications and services. These were debated last week (Thurs June 12) at a half day conference for European Parliament members and European Commission officials.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A NEW pilot initiative is aiming to make European Union (EU) national electronic public procurement systems compatible, to ease cross-border online tendering. Although EU law insists that public procurement contracts are made available to suppliers from foreign member states, making such bids can involve difficult and unfamiliar paperwork.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ALMOST one third of British turkey flocks being fattened for the food industry are contaminated with salmonella, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has warned. In a comprehensive study of the problem across the European Union (EU), EFSA concluded that Britain has one of the poorer records within Europe, having a contamination rate above the EU average of 30.7%.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WITH Dmitry Medvedev becoming Russia’s new president, the European Union (EU) has been pushing ahead to secure oil and gas supplies independent of Moscow. EU energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs and external relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner met with Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey diplomats and officials to discuss gas pipeline links.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) institutions and national governments must take a proactive role to publicise the usefulness and availability of intelligent transport systems, to boost demand and ultimately lower costs, members of the European Parliament say.

Its transport committee has backed a detailed report warning that despite the sophistication and proven worth in safety terms of in-vehicle intelligent systems, European "penetration rates remain very low in relation to their potential."…

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 Alan Osborn

The European Commission believes that the proposed acquisition by the Austrian oil and gas group OMV of the Hungarian oil and gas company MOL "may raise competition concerns in a number of markets." Brussels has ordered an "in-depth" investigation of the deal and will make a decision within 90 days.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A COMPREHENSIVE raft of new legislation designed to force the European Union (EU) into further reducing its greenhouse gas emissions has been tabled by the European Commission. As expected, it has proposed targets that biofuels command 10% of the EU’s liquid fuel consumption by 2020.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank has shown how it intends to pump money into boosting European Union biofuel production capacity, with a planned Euro 41.5 million loan to Hungarian manufacturer Tempora Bioenergia Zrt. It proposes using the funds to build two oil mills and an attached biodiesel refinery with a 100,000 tonnes per annum production capacity.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) protected designation of origin (PDO) system that defends scores of EU traditional drinks from being copied outside their home region has been weakened. The European Court of Justice has ruled official consumer watchdogs have no legal duty to police these rules for imported products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) protected designation of origin (PDO) system that defends EU traditional drinks from being copied outside their home region has been weakened. The European Court of Justice has ruled in a case involving German generic ‘Parmesan’ cheese, official consumer watchdogs to not have to enforce these rules for imported products.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

A NEW study has shown that computer programmes and algorithms can accurately classify different types of dog barks, and in some instances better than trained dog lovers, according to new research published in the journal Animal Cognition.

Lead researcher, Csaba Molnár and his team from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary analysed 6,000 barks from 14 Hungarian sheepdogs in six different situations: ‘stranger’, ‘fight’, ‘walk’, ‘alone’, ‘ball’ and ‘play’.…

BY Monica Dobie

A Hungarian university has shown that computer programmes and algorithms can accurately classify different types of dog barks, and in some instances better than trained dog lovers, according to new research published in the journal Animal Cognition.

Lead researcher, Csaba Molnár and his team from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary analysed 6,000 barks from 14 Hungarian sheepdogs in six different situations: ‘stranger’, ‘fight’, ‘walk’, ‘alone’, ‘ball’ and ‘play’.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has added to its protected traditional designations list Portuguese ‘Transmontano’ pork products; Hungarian salami from Szeged; Italian Pecorino di Filiano cheese, Spain’s Cereza del Jerte cherries, Lenteja Pardina de Tierra de Campos lentils and Garbanzo de Fuentesaúco chickpeas; Cyprus’ Loukoumi Geroskipou confectionary; and Slovakia’s Skalický trdelník patisserie products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has moved to protect eight traditionally made European food products from being copied by food manufacturers based outside the regions where they have historically been made. Brussels has added Portuguese ‘Transmontano’ pork products; Hungarian salami from Szeged; Italian Pecorino di Filiano cheese, and others to its list of protected designations list.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the proposed acquisition of the global biscuits, snacks and cereals business of France’s Danone by US-based Kraft. Brussels’ competition approval depends on Kraft selling off Spanish biscuit brands Artiach, Chiquilin, Filipinos and Marbú Dorada and a Spain biscuit production plant, along with Hungarian chocolate brand Balaton.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the takeover of Italian fuel retail chain – Italiana Energia e Servizi (IES) – by Hungary’s MOL Hungarian Oil and Gas. Brussels has imposed no conditions on the deal. IES also runs roadside catering services, as well as oil refineries.…

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 KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has toughened proposed European Union (EU) legislation on the production of pesticides, but has pulled away from backing some major restrictions on the use of these chemicals. In a first reading of an EU directive and regulation on the issue, MEPs backed amendments saying potentially immunotoxic or neurotoxic substances should never be part of pesticides used in the EU.…

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

EUROPEAN Union (EU) air passengers are generally supportive of today’s increased airport security measures, a European Commission-funded Gallup opinion poll has revealed. Across all 27 member states, a majority of informed respondents (61%) consider airport security controls appropriate, one quarter (24%) insufficient and only 16% excessive.…

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 MARK ROWE
FOLLOWING the ‘big bang’ of European Union (EU) expansion in May 2004, when 10 countries acceded to the EU, followed by Romania and Bulgaria this year, analysts were curious to see how those new members with well-regarded drinks industries would cope in the new pan-EU family.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PUBLIC subsidies paid to the polluting energy producers, such as coal-fired power stations, should be screened for promoting environmental damage, an influential European Union (EU) expert group has proposed.

The EU’s High-Level Group on Energy, Competitiveness and the Environment, which includes EU Commissioners, national government representatives, and executives from European industry, unions, non-governmental organisations and regulators, said “subsidies must serve the common interest”, or be phased out.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Bank is injecting US$4.53 million into an eastern Europe and central Asian fund promoting geothermal energy production, with the lion’s share (US$3.7 million) going to the Hungarian Oil and Gas Company (MOL) to fund geological risk insurance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared the acquisition of Borsod-Chem Nyrt of Hungary by Permira Holdings Ltd of Guernsey, the Channel Islands. A Brussels note said that Permira subsidiary First Chemical Holding Vagyonkezel? Kft (itself controlled by another subsidiary the Permira IV Fund) would take over the Hungarian company.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WHEN academics think of European Union (EU) funding for their projects or institutions, they often consider the European Commission, with its high profile in education and research spending through its framework programmes. But there is another EU institution developing an increasingly important role as a financial fountainhead for European higher education: the European Investment Bank (EIB).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FLEET managers looking to offload used-cars in Hungary will be pleased the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has declared illegal high Hungarian registration duty charged on imported second-hand vehicles. Registration duties on old vehicles previously used in Hungary are reduced to take depreciation into account, and so are lower than imported cars.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE HUNGARIAN government has banned the sale of three Lush henna hair colouring products over alleged excess bacteria, ordering a consumer recall. The move covers caca noir; caca marron and caca brun varieties, all made in Britain. Tests indicated the presence of banned bacteria pseudomonas aerugonosa in all three lines, reported the European Commission.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Commission investigators have raided Hungarian power operators looking for evidence that long-term electricity purchase agreements break European Union (EU) competition laws. The probe is one of a series of actions taken by the Commission’s directorate general for competition to drive restrictive practices out of the power sector across Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A POLITICAL battle is underway at the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers over whether EU import duties on unwrought aluminium should be retained or scrapped. The struggle pits Poland and eight other member states against Germany, which wants the current 6% duties retained.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FINANCIAL assistance secured by the Hungarian government for its national coal industry has been approved by the European Commission, notably fixed feed-in tariffs for coal imposed on state-owned power company MVM in 2004-5. Although Brussels concluded this did represent a transfer of state money to Hungarian coal producers, it has ruled it "compatible with the common (European Union) market.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is not only concerned with trade and to underline this point the European Commission acted this summer to authorise national government subsidies for museums and other cultural organisations in Hungary, Poland and Denmark. The sums involved were not enormous – the total subsidies and tax breaks was only around Euro 30 million – but such decisions are politically sensitive and care has been taken by the Commission to avoid being accused of allowing one country’s cultural organisations to have better treatment than another.…

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.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission under incoming energy Commissioner Lázló Kovács could look to Russia and the Ukraine as the key guarantors of Europe’s future gas and oil supplies. Kovács, a Hungarian, has told the European Parliament that he intends to establish “real cooperation” with these countries as a first priority.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE HUNGARIAN government has come under pressure from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to lift a national ban on cultivating an EU-approved GM maize (MON 810). EFSA has concluded there is “no new scientific evidence (risking) human health and the environment” to justify the ban.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
JACQUES Barrot, who has been given responsibility for transport in the new European Commission, is a close political ally of the French president Jacques Chirac and can be expected to take a tough line in defending French interests when Brussels draws up transport policy in the next five years.…

BY MARK ROWE
During the time of the Soviet Union, museums in the satellite states of Eastern Europe routinely kept short working hours, closed without notice and were all too frequently dowdy, musty and inaccessible.

With the accession of 10 new states (including eight in eastern Europe), into the European Union, the future for museums from Lithuania to Malta, and from Slovenia to Slovakia is much brighter.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
ITALY has sparked off a dispute over use of the name Tokai for wine, saying that enlargement of the EU this year has effectively nullified an agreement reserving use of the name for Hungarian producers after 2007. Under a deal made in 1993 Italy and France were allowed to market wines bearing the name Tokai until 2007 after which Hungary would have exclusive use.…

BY MARK ROWE
ALCOHOL products are one of the major strengths that the new members of the recently enlarged European Union (EU) bring to its economic table. Of the 10 newcomers, six are wine-producing countries: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia.…

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 HUNGARIAN government is investigating a sugar import boom it fears may damage local production. Imports rose to 27.9 per cent of consumed sugar in 2003’s first quarter, compared with 6.3 per cent the same period in 2002.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A COMPREHENSIVE deal over third party access to gas pipelines has been agreed between German joint venture BEB and the European Commission, leading to Brussels closing its competition investigation into the company’s refusal to allow Norway’s Marathon to pump gas into its infrastructure.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE INSTITUTIONS of the European Union (EU) have invited applications for about 375 lawyer posts to help meet the demands imposed by next year’s enlargement of the EU from 15 to 25 countries which will add 75 million to the EU population.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the proposed acquisition of Norwegian oil and gas company Fortum Petroleum by Italy’s energy company ENI, saying it would not damage the current competitive situation in the gas markets in Italy or in southern Germany, where ENI is present through GVS.…

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

CZECH brewer Budejovicky Budvar can call its beer ‘Budweiser’ in Hungary but it cannot call it ‘Bud’. That was the message given to the Czechs by the Hungarian Patent Office in the latest chapter in a battle between the state-owned brewery and American brewer Anheuser-Busch.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE CONCEPT of nation building is not new. Powerful governments have for centuries sought to create pliant political administrations which would do their bidding, without being directly under their control. It is, after all, in noone’s interest for a territory to descent into chaos.…