Search Results for: Irish

Britain’s open register of beneficial ownership was groundbreaking worldwide but its effectiveness as a bulwark against money laundering is being debated, even as both the European Union (EU) and the US move ahead at varying pace to replicate the system. The question of whether BO registers should be open or closed is one that is being discussed in countries around the world.…

Ireland’s burgeoning medtech sector has supported changes in the latest Irish government budget, announced on October 12, which could boost investment and start-ups in this globally important Irish industry. The Fianna Fail-Fine Gail-Green coalition unveiled reforms to the country’s Employment Investment Incentive (EII) scheme, which grants tax exemptions to investors in industries such as medtech.…

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has broadened the potential impact from European Union (EU) protected designations of origin (PDOs) by ruling national courts can decide they have been breached if a trading name “evokes” an association with a protected drink (or food).…

The question of when and whether lobbying is ethically questionable or even a criminal bribe is a complex issue, with rules varying according to jurisdictions. Often, actions that are politically embarrassing, are definitely not bribes, or indeed unlawful in anyway. For example, on September 15, Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney survived a no-confidence vote in the Dáil Éireann over his handling of the appointment of former minister for children Katherine Zappone as his country’s ‘Special Envoy to the UN on Freedom of Opinion and Expression’.…

The question of when and whether lobbying is ethically questionable or even a criminal bribe is a complex issue, with rules varying according to jurisdictions. Often, actions that are politically embarrassing, are definitely not bribes, or indeed unlawful in anyway. For example, on September 15, Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney survived a no-confidence vote in the Dáil Éireann over his handling of the appointment of former minister for children Katherine Zappone as his country’s ‘Special Envoy to the UN on Freedom of Opinion and Expression’.…

The May (2021) acquisition by Irish animal health products firm Bimeda, of Seattle, USA-based AquaTactics Fish Health was low profile, but significant in highlighting Irish ambitions in the global aquaculture industry. The sector is growing globally, with production increasing to replace declining wild fishery stocks, in many cases fished to their maximum sustainable levels.…

In the modern textile industry, coating, surface modification and laminating are the key means to tailor textiles and nonwovens to create functional products for specific, often high-performance, applications.

Such techniques have offered the sector potential advantages as it entered uncharted terrain in 2020, being at the forefront in humankind’s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.…

WHILE the UK’s exit from the European Union (EU) will bring significant change to civil aviation across Europe, extensive air industry provisions within the 1,256-page EU/UK trade and cooperation agreement agreed on Christmas Eve, means that significant disruption has been avoided.…

The COVID-19 pandemic has decimated revenues at many Irish small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) but it could also prove a crucial period in the embrace of digital technology by firms. Irish SMEs are facing a collective annual revenue shortfall (where income fell below expenditure) of between EUR10.3 and EUR11.7 billion in 2020 due to the virus, according to research by the Central Bank of Ireland.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) finance ministers today (Nov 4) gave support to plans to create an EU-wide anti-money laundering (AML) supervisor and harmonised EU laws to tackle the crime.

The European Commission announced in May that it plans to create “a single EU rulebook” to tackle money laundering and terrorism financing, with more reliance on a mandatory regulation than more flexible directives and a new coordination mechanism for national Finance Intelligence Units (FIU).…

With the Irish economy facing an uncertain 20200 final quarter, accountants are agreed that the government’s wage subsidy scheme has helped keep many clients afloat during the Covid-19 crisis. But they worry a revised version of the scheme applied from September may not be enough for some companies.…

While it is too early to assess the full impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the UK personal care product sector, industry experts expect strategic changes to its supply chain, a growth towards innovative digital strategies and changes in consumer behaviour that will shape the industry in the long run.…

Joe O’Regan is a busy man, and busier than ever because of Covid-19, the novel coronavirus that has upended global life on an unprecedented scale.

“These past few weeks have been a complete game changer for all of us,” says O’Regan, FCCA, the director of Harvard University’s Global Support Services (GSS), a relatively new organisation within the university that supports students, faculty, and staff overseas — from responding to overseas emergencies to repatriating university affiliates in times of crisis.…

WITH Britain having finally bowed out from the European Union (EU) on January 31, Ireland has lost its allied English-speaking Atlantic-oriented member state, with which it has fought battles within the EU Council of Ministers against proposals for greater harmonisation of EU tax rules.…

GEOGRAPHICAL indications can be controversial legal protections that some food manufacturers regard as being unjust restrictions on trade in quality food items that are inspired by traditional products.

Of course, for companies based in traditional production regions of goods such as Prosciutto ham and Irish whisky, they can be a Godsend – preventing illicit competition (as they see it) from banking on a reputation for taste that has been created by protected manufacturers in previous decades, even centuries.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) paint and coatings companies must now – from January 1 (2020) – comply with new EU legal requirements on ensuring products containing nanomaterials are safe. The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has released two guidance documents to help EU companies undertake new duties to prepare registration dossiers covering nanoforms any chemicals used in a product.…

To create a more balanced and sustainable economy, Ireland would benefit from having more entrepreneurs, especially outside the business hotspots in the capital Dublin, development experts say. Government can play a key role, Senator Pádraig Ó Céidigh said in a November seminar at the National University of Ireland, Galway, especially by better connecting the dots between various development schemes for entrepreneurs.…

IRISH farming accountants will not only be monitoring Brexit as a current important European Union (EU) policy change, they will be scrutinising potential reforms to the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), now under discussion for remaining member states, like Ireland. They will be advising their agricultural clients to be prepared for potential shifts in CAP subsidies.…

AFTER 20 years of negotiations the European Union (EU)-Mercosur trade deal, which has boosted hopes for increased textile trades with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay is at risk of being blocked ahead of its ratification.

Furious about ongoing deforestation and wildfires in Amazonia, EU countries, including influential countries France and Ireland, have warned that they are ready to block the deal because of alleged breaches by Brazil of its international environmental commitments.…

AFTER 20 years of negotiations the European Union (EU)-Mercosur trade deal, which has boosted hopes for increased can and associated materials trades with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, is now at risk of being blocked ahead of its ratification.

Furious about ongoing deforestation and wildfires in Amazonia, EU countries, including influential countries France and Ireland, have warned that they are ready to block the deal because of alleged breaches by Brazil of its international environmental commitments.…

THE BEAUTY and personal care sectors have performed healthily in Australia and New Zealand throughout the past year, with companies providing consumers with fulfilling experiences, skin care excellence and natural ingredients performing particularly strongly.

The continued growth of beauty and personal care in Australia in 2018 was also driven by the expansion of specialist retailers Mecca and Sephora in premium beauty.…

IRISH accounting executives are busy advising clients on how to benefit from a new wave of Chinese investment that is moving into Ireland. At a party staged at the Convention Centre Dublin this September to mark 40 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Ambassador He Xiangdong said Chinese investors “are in a good mood” about Ireland, with Chinese foreign direct investment into the Republic exceeding EUR128 million from this January-June, up 75% year-on-year.…

‘AUSTRALIAN-made’, ‘cruelty-free’ and ‘natural’ – these were the marketing buzz words most commonly cited during Australia’s leading beauty event – Beauty Expo Australia – staged in Sydney between August 24 and 25.

Although ‘Proudly Australian’ has become a slogan used by many beauty brands based in Australia, the conference actually demonstrated how Australian beauty retailers and consumers are open to trying more international lines, new treatments and innovative products.…

The lack of oversight over funds given by Ireland’s Health Service Executive to potentially unworthy charitable organisations, such as the scandal-ridden suicide charity Console (now closed), has caused much political tumult over the past decade. And a series of debates over Irish charity executive pay has dented public confidence.…

Irish small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) could make more use of the country’s R&D tax credits to stimulate innovation according to a recent KPMG study which found only 55% of SMEs surveyed had claimed R&D tax credits. Also, only half of respondents were aware of a ‘knowledge development box’ tax relief offered by Ireland’s Revenue Commissioners to encourage more spending on research and development activities.…

MARCH’S approval by the European Parliament of new European Union (EU) electricity market rules, designed to increase consumer choice, boost renewables access and cap power subsidies, were hailed by the European Commission as a new dawn for the creation of the EU’s much vaunted Energy Union.…

THE GLOBAL demand for lactic acid is growing, with the world market forecast to reach USD1.75 billion by 2020, on the back of an 8.6% annual gain for polylactic acid, according to data from international nutrition group Glanbia Ireland. So, it is encouraging to hear about the launch of the company’s first-of-its-kind bio-refinery project, that will turn low value by-products from the dairy processing industry into sustainable lactic acid among other by-products, and finally turn Europe to a net exporter of lactic acid.…

IRISH accountants will be on the frontline of a major investment challenge facing Ireland – how to improve the country’s weak water supply system, without boosting its energy consumption to levels that may fuel climate change.

Combining non-financial with financial reporting is an essential part of making the fine investment judgements that will be needed as Ireland’s government and utilities seek to reform a water system that loses over 40% of its supplies from the national pipe network before it flows from taps.…

IRELAND’S whistleblowing regime is to be strengthened to comply with a new European Union (EU) whistleblowing directive that was approved in April (2019) by the European Parliament. Reforms must be in place by 2021 and will build on Ireland’s Protected Disclosures Act 2014 – itself a step forward legally for Irish whistleblowing, according to Professor Kate Kenny, of the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUI).…

Few issues give Irish politicians as much grief as the health service. Perennial budget overruns and waiting lists have ruined several ministerial careers. But what should have been a good news story, the building of a new National Paediatric Hospital, in Dublin, has done perhaps the most damage.…

With their large financial services industries and open economies, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland are conspicuously exposed to money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF) risks.

Tough anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) policies are at the heart of their respective financial services regulations, yet both countries are regularly forced to fend off criticisms that they are not doing enough to tackle these problems.…

Beef Plan – a movement put together by Irish suckler and beef farmers to fetch them better prices and more autonomy – is gaining momentum, the group’s spokesperson has told GlobalMeatNews.

The project that kicked off last September (2018), outside the structures of traditional farming organisation, and projected to last until 2025, is all about “getting control back to farmers” from the big beef buyers, empowering them to make good business decisions, said Beef Plan spokesperson Eamon Corley.…

It may not have been widely noticed internationally, but Dublin has become a key cog in the Russian economy’s financial system. That exposure – while profitable for the city’s accountants and lawyers – also risks becoming a liability due a lack of transparency over the source and use of funds.…

EUROPEAN Union member states are dragging their feet implementing the fourth anti-money laundering directive’s (4AMLD 2015/849) beneficial ownership rules. Only five countries met the June 26, 2017, AMLD4 deadline for having an ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) register under national law – Britain, Denmark, France, Germany and Sweden- according to the European Commission. …

AS the British House of Commons prepares to vote on the European Union (EU) withdrawal agreement negotiated by UK Prime Minister Theresa May, the Irish beef sector has been warning that a no deal Brexit would cause chaos and dramatically undermine Ireland’s beef exports.…

The recent sight of a Chinese internet celebrity in a milking parlour in Limerick could be a hint of what the future holds for Ireland’s increasingly international dairy industry. Xiao Lu Yu, one of the ‘influencers’ who monetise Chinese social media (see https://m.weibo.cn/status/4279583182420503…

AMERICAN confectioners may suffer from the latest tit-for-tat tariff exchange between the USA and China, with retaliatory duties from China targeting US confectionery exports. Many of these duties are high – at 25% – imposed from September 24 on US-made sugar; cocoa powder; milk powder; honey; jams; and more; plus 20% duties on US-made confectionery without cocoa; chewing gum; some chocolates; and more.…

“Group think”, an “intolerance of dissent and difference” as well as an “inordinately high value on relationships rather than rules” have prevented a culture of whistleblowers from taking root in Ireland, boosting cronyism and weakening regulation, economists and regulators were warned earlier this month (October).…

TIME was when dairy farming in Ireland was a family affair, with smallholdings and local dairies predominant. But those days are long gone. The Irish dairy sector is now big business, not just on Republic of Ireland’s 4.8 million population, but also overseas, with big brands targeting foreign markets.…

LARGE motorway service areas have become a recent feature of the Irish landscape, with plaza-type facilities incorporating fuel, food and grocery retailers under one roof.  However, the key players in the forecourt market, which is increasingly held by Irish firms Maxol and Applegreen, along with Canadian newcomer Couche-Tard – are now racing to reposition themselves given the Irish government plans by 2030 to end sales of petrol and diesel vehicles.…

UK and remaining European Union (EU) food producers are becoming increasingly anxious about the prospect of Britain crashing out of the EU single market without a replacement trade deal. It is a scenario that could leave British manufacturers facing crippling tariffs, border delays and reams of red tape.…

UK food and drink manufacturers have warned that adopting new rules for designating the origin of products after Brexit could be catastrophic for their industry due to the globally integrated supply chains of many UK-made foods.

The UK Food & Drink Federation (FDF) and National Association of British and Irish Flour Millers (nabim) (NOTE TO EDITOR – GROUP USES LOWER CASE FOR ACRONYM) are among the bodies that have called for European Union (EU) rules of origin (ROO) to be maintained after Brexit to avoid punitive tariffs on UK foods made with ingredients imported from outside the EU and exported to other member states.…

As Ireland approaches full employment, (unemployment is currently just 6.3%), companies facing higher labour costs and competition for staff are improving their workplace environment to become more attractive as employers. They also hope that a new generation of high-spec office spaces – some being unveiled by accounting firms – will boost productivity.…

Dairy product manufacturers on both sides of the Irish border are becoming increasingly concerned about possible changes border arrangements between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which could interrupt ingredients supplies, once the UK leaves the European Union (EU).

According to Dairy Industry Ireland (DII), the body that represents the interests of the Republic of  Ireland’s primary and secondary dairy processors, replacing the existing open border with a hard border after a planned Brexit transitional period to December 2020 could sever supply chains for some highly popular dairy-based exports: this could include Irish cream liqueur and Irish cheddar.…

The prospect of significant hikes in taxes and administrative red tape on Irish exports and imports travelling through the UK to and from the rest of Europe once Britain leaves the European Union (EU), has prompted Irish exporters to seek more options for direct maritime trade.…

Irish meat and livestock exporters could soon bypass the UK by shipping products directly to continental Europe, in a bid to avoid increased costs and customs checks at British ports, once the UK leaves the European Union (EU).

According to the Irish Exporters Association (IEA), around 67% of Irish exporters currently make use of the UK land-bridge to access continental markets.…

Meat producers and exporters in Britain and Ireland have called on policy makers to come up with more alternatives for a post-Brexit trade settlement between the UK, Northern Ireland and the EU.

The demands follow the publication by the European Commission on Wednesday (28 February) of a 120-page draft Brexit withdrawal agreement by the European Commission, which spelled out plans for Northern Ireland to remain within the EU’s customs union after December 31, 2020.…

IRELAND has been fighting to preserve the tax advantages it offers US firms who base their European headquarters in the country, with the Trump administration’s tax reforms creating new incentives for American firms to repatriate jobs, profits and intellectual property.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed into law last December (2017) by President Donald Trump exceeded the expectations of many in its significance, believes Harry Harrison, FDI Tax Partner, PwC Ireland, who points to its “many fundamental changes” to the US tax system.…

Meat producers and exporters in Britain and Ireland have called on policy makers to come up with more alternatives for a post-Brexit trade settlement between the UK, Northern Ireland and the EU.

The demands follow the publication by the European Commission on Wednesday (28 February) of a 120-page draft Brexit withdrawal agreement by the European Commission, which spelled out plans for Northern Ireland to remain within the EU’s customs union after December 31, 2020.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has told UK and European Union (EU) food companies that they will be able to trade food products freely across EU and UK markets into 2021, following Britain’s planned 2019 departure from the EU. A draft withdrawal agreement released yesterday (Wednesday Feb 28) gives reassurances over placing food on the EU market during and after the proposed transitional period – to December 2020.…

DAIRY products sold in Europe, a regional market where high standards of food safety apply, continue to be contaminated with plastics, glass, chemicals, biological matter and other materials. This is despite the fact that European food producers and authorities have zero risk as their ultimate goal, sector experts and the European Union (EU) regulators admit.…

CONSTRUCTION was a pillar of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger boom that brought wealth to the country before the global financial crisis hit in 2008. Now, 10 years on, the Irish building sector is once again fuelling economic growth, with construction activity having “significantly increased” in the past 14 months, according to Jamie O’Hanlon, an accountant and managing director, of Dublin and Portlaoise-based Avid Partners.…

THE EUROPEAN Parliament’s January votes also laid down a negotiating position on proposals to revise the EU’s energy efficiency directive (2012/27/EU 2011/0172(COD)). MEPs want a binding EU-wide target for improving energy efficiency by 35% by 2030. Assessments to demonstrate compliance would be held under the PRIMES model, which simulates the EU energy consumption and the energy supply system – see https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/strategies/analysis/models_en…

The promise of the European Union (EU) agriculture and rural development Commissioner Phil Hogan to give dairy and other farmers “a fair share of the pie” from food industry revenues and to protect them from the power of big retailers has added tension to an already vexed issue.…

After a bleak decade of boom-to-bust, debt and hotel closures, Ireland’s hotel sector is again in what it hopes is a sustainable growth mode as the economy rebounds. A 2017 Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) survey of hotel members showed that 91% are planning investments in capacity with 43% planning to invest in guest technology, such as broadband.  …

IF Brexit did not pose a sufficiently large external threat to the Irish economy, another potentially major disruption is in the offing, via planned changes to European Union (EU) taxation rules on e-commerce.

Faced with the politically toxic reality that major American high-tech multinationals such as Google, Facebook and PayPal pay far less tax than might be expected given their huge profit, the European Union (EU) has been considering reforms to increase revenues from these giants.…

IF Brexit did not pose a sufficiently large external threat to the Irish economy, another potentially major disruption is in the offing, via planned changes to European Union (EU) taxation rules on e-commerce.

Faced with the politically toxic reality that major American high-tech multinationals such as Google, Facebook and PayPal pay far less tax than might be expected given their huge profit, the European Union (EU) has been considering reforms to increase revenues from these giants.…

THE DECISION by the European Union (EU) to push ahead with legislation insisting that major companies publish key country-by-country (CbC) tax data might be criticised by some corporates as unnecessary, given earlier legislation has forced them to structure their books on a CbC basis.…

DUBLIN-based accountancy firm BDO is planning to start a new EUR100 million investment fund to assist fast expanding mid-sized Irish companies in unlocking further growth opportunities. This will be the successor fund to an already existing BDO Development Capital Fund (DCF) worth EUR75 million.…

IRELAND prioritises its counter-terrorism measures, but could do more to tackle the financing of such criminal activities, a new report published this month has found.

The latest assessment of Ireland’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) system by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was adopted at its June plenary meeting.…

DAIRY robots might seem like science fiction, but their use has increased dramatically in Europe over the last 20 years. Ireland’s Animal and Grassland Research and Innovation Centre (Teagasc) predicts 20% of cows will be milked automatically by 2020, with other reports citing a 50% rate in northwest Europe by 2025.…

WITH the UK having triggered Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, starting the two-year countdown to its exit from the EU, maybe no group outside the UK has more at stake than Irish farmers.

“Brexit presents the most serious threat to Irish farming and our agri-food sector in the history of the state.…

THE BANK of Ireland, one of the country’s major commercial banks, has been fined EUR3.15 million for persistent breaches of Irish anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) rules over more than three years.

These penalties have been imposed by the Central Bank of Ireland because of 12 offences under Ireland’s Criminal Justice (Money Laundering & Terrorist Financing) Act 2010 between the year the law was enacted, most continuing on average until 2013, some until 2015.…

RUSSIAN air traffic controllers in Smolensk have been blamed by Poland’s Deputy Prosecutor, Marek Pasionek, for the 2010 air crash in Russia that killed Poland’s president Lech Kaczynski and 95 other senior Polish politicians. Speaking at a press conference on April 3, Pasionek said that a detailed investigation had revealed “evidence that has allowed prosecutors to formulate new charges against air traffic controllers, citizens of the Russian Federation”.…

A LARGE new office block near the National Concert Hall in Dublin could be the ultimate statement that Ireland’s medical technology (medtech) industry has come of age. With large windows set into sandstone-coloured walls, the building will house the headquarters of Medtronic, the US giant which moved its headquarters to Ireland in 2015 as part of a USD42.9 billion acquisition of rival Covidien, also based in Ireland but from a similarly American corporate background.…

THE CENTRAL Bank of Ireland has fined Allied Irish Banks (AIB) EUR2.275 million for breaches of Ireland’s 2010 Criminal Justice (Money Laundering & Terrorist Financing) Act. The offences have been admitted by AIB. This follows a central bank inquiry that concluded commercial and retail bank AIB broke this anti-money laundering (AML) law for three years after it came into force, (in July 2010) on average – with breaches continuing until July 2014.…

EUROPEAN and French meat industry organisations are preparing to respond to China’s decision to lift its embargo on French exports of de-boned beef for animals. China is the second largest importer of beef worldwide: “We welcome the move in principle,” European Union (EU) farm body Copa-Cogeca’s secretary general Pekka Pesonen told GlobalMeatNews.…

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) XP-DITE accelerated checkpoint design integration test and evaluation project has enabled the creation and approval of the world’s first combined EU and United States pre-clearance checkpoint. Its goal is to create a regulatory system that gives the designers and operators of airport checkpoints more freedom to choose how they build and run these systems, making them more effective and maybe cheaper, but at the same time guaranteeing a high level of security.…

WITH President Donald Trump having consigned the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal to the dustbin of history, focus is now switching to his intentions over the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) that has been under negotiation since 2013.

If completed, this could be one of the biggest trade deals ever signed – uniting the economies of the USA and the European Union (EU), which will still be huge, even if Britain makes good on its 2016 referendum result to quit the bloc.…

2016 – Winners and losers

RETAILERS & BRANDS

WINNERS

US-based sportswear brand Under Armour delivered its 26th consecutive quarter of 20%-plus revenue growth in the third quarter of 2016, with sales increases across all divisions. Net sales were up 22% in the third quarter to USD1.47bn.…

VIETNAM’S construction and manufacturing sectors are driving demand for paints and varnishes as economic growth remains healthy despite speed bumps this year. While this key south-east Asian emerging market’s economic growth took a hit this year thanks to environmental issues and weak global export demand, the country’s paints and coatings industry continues to grow.…

VIETNAM’S construction and manufacturing sectors are driving demand for paints and varnishes as economic growth remains healthy despite speed bumps this year. While this key south-east Asian emerging market’s economic growth took a hit this year thanks to environmental issues and weak global export demand, the country’s paints and coatings industry continues to grow.…

EU E-COMMERCE VAT REFORMS PROPOSED BY EUROPEAN COMMISSION

REFORMS to European Union (EU) e-commerce VAT rules have been proposed by the European Commission which include a clear declaration VAT should be paid in the member state of the final consumer.…

VIETNAM’S construction and manufacturing sectors are driving demand for paints and varnishes as economic growth remains healthy despite speed bumps this year. While this key south-east Asian emerging market’s economic growth took a hit this year thanks to environmental issues and weak global export demand, the country’s paints and coatings industry continues to grow.…

EU E-COMMERCE VAT REFORMS PROPOSED BY EUROPEAN COMMISSION

REFORMS to European Union (EU) e-commerce VAT rules have been proposed by the European Commission which include a clear declaration VAT should be paid in the member state of the final consumer.…

As the Northern Ireland government lurched from crisis to political crisis in recent years there has been less focus on the rivers of dirty money flowing through and out of the province, the results of criminal enterprises run by Ulster’s paramilitaries.…

The European Commission’s decision on August 30 to order United States (US) tech giant Apple to repay Ireland a record-breaking EUR13 billion in back taxes will make waves in the tax and accounting world, experts have told Accounting & Business Ireland.…

MAJOR delays are expected at Dubai International Airport in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after an Emirates airline plane crash-landed and burst into flames on a runway at Dubai International Airport just after 12:45pm local time today (August 3). Flight EK521 was arriving from Trivandrum International Airport, Thiruvananthapuram, India.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission’s latest EUR500 million support package for European farmers, finalised at an August 26 European Union (EU) committee in Brussels, will not ease the dairy crisis, European dairy groups have warned.

“Production cuts is the label used to describe the current package of measures,” said the EU farm lobby group European Milk Board (EMB)’s president Romuald Schaber following the initial announcement of the plans in July.…

THE opening of Paddy Power bookmaker shops in provincial Romanian cities such as Cluj in the past year is the latest show of international ambition from an Irish corporation which has become a market leader and has shaken up the European gambling industry.…

With the Irish government focused on attracting multinationals to the Republic of Ireland, it is often overlooked that Irish family businesses remain resilient.

Indeed some of the best known names in Irish business started out small and private. Ryanair was launched by the Ryan family of county Tipperary.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) dairy producers are suffering a prolonged crisis because of the April 2015 elimination of milk quotas; Russia’s food import ban – now extended until December 31, 2017 – and worldwide overproduction, the European Parliament has heard. Moreover, MEPs at a ‘New exceptional market measures limiting milk production’ hearing hosted by the European Parliament’s agriculture and rural development committee in Brussels on May 25 were not convinced the EU’s EUR500 million aid package agreed in September 2015 would give producers the help they need.…

SHOULD the United Kingdom (UK) elect to exit the European Union (EU) in the referendum on June 23rd [CHECKED], the tax impact on Ireland would be considerable, claimed managing director at Hughes Blake, a leading chartered accountants firm in Dublin.…

The 2016 outlook for the US paints and coatings industry remains positive, with experts predicting growth thanks to a resilient US economy, a strong performance by the manufacturing industry, and notable new trade agreements.

According to IBISWorld, a global market research company, the US paints and coatings industry bounced back quickly from the financial economic crisis beginning in 2008.…

IF anything is clear about the vital decision that must be made by the British electorate on June 23 about whether their country should stay within or quit the European Union (EU), it is that the pharmaceutical industry – largely – wants the UK to stay put.…

MEAT and livestock sector specialists have warned that a possible British exit from the European Union (EU) could pose a significant threat to the industry in Ireland, should a Brexit restrict trades across the UK’s only land border. Overall Irish meat and livestock exports were worth EUR3.7 billion in 2015, according to the Irish Food Board (Bord Bia).…

Financial experts struck off for misconduct from professional bodies, such as the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), should be actively barred from working as accountants, a Brussels conference on ‘Fighting Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing: The Role of Accountants and Finance Professionals’ has heard.…

European Union (EU) beef farmers have called for help finding new markets to make up for the loss of exports to Russia in the wake of the crisis over Ukraine.
Jean Pierre Fleury, chairman of EU farm and livestock producer association Copa-Cogeca’s beef working party, has issued a plea to the European Commission, calling on it “to take urgent action to improve the EU beef market situation.”…

THE IRISH government has predicted to globalmeatnews.com that American beef exports to the European Union (EU) will be limited by quotas in future, even if the EU and USA successfully negotiate a Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership deal.
An official for Ireland’s department of jobs, enterprise and innovation explained: “The position of beef as a sensitive sector for Ireland is well known by the government and the EU Commission.…

East Africa is emerging as an attractive sourcing alternative for apparel and textile producers around the world as costs in Chinese outsourcing centres rise especially. With cheaper labour and resources, the region has already attracted foreign investment, particularly from Asia.

International apparel and textile producers are looking hard at Ethiopia as an attractive production and sourcing destination.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission’s vice-president for energy Maroš Šefčovič has backed the idea of creating a European regional energy distribution hub in Bulgaria, which has been floated by its government. However, speaking after a visit to Brussels by the Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov last week (12 January), Šefčovič underlined the conditions necessary for this to happen in the country: proper infrastructure, transparency, liquidity and non-discriminatory access to suppliers and customers.…

There is something of the fairy-tale about the luxury Atlantis The Palm hotel in Dubai. An impressive and elegant palatial structure, built next to the warm waters of the Gulf, this is a real signature building and business, with 1,537 bedrooms.…

There is something of the fairy-tale about the luxury Atlantis The Palm hotel in Dubai. An impressive and elegant palatial structure, built next to the warm waters of the Gulf, this is a real signature building and business, with 1,537 bedrooms.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has ruled that the operator of Belgium’s Charleroi airport must pay EUR6 million illegal ‘state aid’ to the Belgian government, generated from being granted an unfairly low concession fee. The decision follows a 12 year competition inquiry by the Commission into Charleroi, including the access deal offered by operator Brussels South Charleroi Airport (BSCA) to Ryanair, the main user of the regional airport.…

IRELAND has been especially hard hit by the latest expansion of Russia’s ban on European Union (EU) meat exports, figures released today by the European Commission reveal.
Moscow has expanded its existing import restrictions to cover beef offal and beef fats.…

NOMINATED European Union (EU) agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan has promised an urgent review of “unfair practices” by supermarkets, which can hold meat producers to price ransom when negotiating with farmers.

He acknowledged to members of the European Parliament (MEPs) that the present voluntary discussions between producers and retailers are unsatisfactory in many cases, agreeing with one MEP “that producers are still in fear of supermarkets.”…

THE NEW European Union (EU) agriculture Commissioner has promised to carefully prepare for the planned abolition of EU sugar production quotas in September 2017. Speaking at a confirmation hearing at the European Parliament on October 2, former Irish environment minister Phil Hogan, 54, said he welcomed the liberalisation which is part of the recent reforms to the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).…

IRISH Environment Minister Phil Hogan has been nominated as the new agriculture commissioner for the European Union today. Assuming he is confirmed by the European Parliament, he should start his new job on Nov 1. Meanwhile, Vytenis Andriukaitis of Lithuania will become the EU’s new health and food safety commissioner.…

International airports worldwide are working hard to install biometric border controls that they hope will speed passenger movement, while maintaining, or even enhancing security.

A key example of such new installations has been at Ireland’s biggest hub Dublin Airport, where since April 2013, travellers arriving at the 74-year old airport – which handles more than 20 million passengers per year – have had the option of passing through biometric identification gates in the airport’s immigration hall.…

A NEW software and sensor system designed to reduce carbon emissions and energy costs by 20% in airports is being trialled at Rome’s Fiumicino and Milan’s Malpensa airports. This new CASCADE system has been developed through a EUR2.6 million European Union (EU) research project.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved public subsidy investments into three airports in Germany (Dortmund, Leipzig/Halle and Niederrhein-Weeze) and three in France (Angoulême, Pau Pyrénées and Nîmes). In all cases, it found government-related financial injections were in line with European Union (EU) state aid rules.…

IRISH Environment Minister Phil Hogan has been nominated as the new agriculture commissioner for the European Union (EU), with responsibility for ensuring a smooth production of food ingredients across Europe. Assuming he is confirmed by the European Parliament, he should start his new job on November 1.…

THE CONCLUSION of a Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) currently being negotiated between the European Union (EU) and the US could have serious adverse consequences for the EU suckler cows sector, European experts claim. A new study presented yesterday (Wednesday) in the European Parliament in Brussels argues US-sourced beef imports could increase in volume and fall in price.…

Kevin McCarthy, the recently appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Microsoft’s Consumer Channels Group, is planning to use his expertise in manufacturing and managing consumer space to spin energised growth into what is, as he puts it, is “already an amazing business model.”…

Kevin McCarthy, the recently appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Microsoft’s Consumer Channels Group, is planning to use his expertise in manufacturing and managing consumer space to spin energised growth into what is, as he puts it, is “already an amazing business model.”…

THE LATEST European Commission annual report on European Union (EU) anti-fraud measures has highlighted concerns that member states may be doing far too little to detect EU-related financial crime. Keith Nuthall reports.

A 2013 Report on the Protection of the EU’s Financial Interests noted that some member states reported “very low numbers of fraudulent irregularities” – but the Commission does not believe this is because they are clean.…

THE LATEST European Commission annual report on European Union (EU) anti-fraud measures has claimed member states may be doing too little to detect EU-related financial crime. Brussels’ 2013 Report on the Protection of the EU’s Financial Interests noted some member states reported “very low numbers of fraudulent irregularities”.…

IRELAND’S beef sector is facing tough times – slim profits and poor prices are hurting farmers, industry experts say. Declining beef prices have already cost Irish farmers EUR106 million (USD144.1 million) this year so far, Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) general secretary Eddie Punch told globalmeatnews.com.…

THE LATEST European Commission annual report on European Union (EU) anti-fraud measures has highlighted concerns that member states may be doing far too little to detect EU-related financial crime.
Brussels’ 2013 Report on the Protection of the EU’s Financial Interests noted that some member states reported “very low numbers of fraudulent irregularities”.…

European dairy producers have expressed alarm at talks on the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), arguing that European producers may face lower prices and standards from the ambitious European Union (EU)-USA trade pact. But as the sixth round of negotiations got underway in Brussels in July, some processors argued that European producers stand to gain from a liberalised market across the Atlantic.…

LONG-TERM support for the wave and tidal energy industries has been announced by the European Commission, which this spring said it intended to support “the rapid development of key ocean energy technologies at the European level”.

European Union (EU) energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger said: “Ocean energy has a significant potential to enhance the security of supply”, adding that “a wide portfolio of renewable energy sources -including ocean energy” was necessary if non fossil fuels were to become “mainstream and integrated into the European energy system.”…

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.…

BUDGET airlines have a major impact on airport expansion or contraction across Europe, but their importance can be particularly pronounced in countries towards the east, whose economies are still catching up with the west of the continent.

Even in Poland, which avoided recession since the financial collapse of 2008, some airports have asked city and regional governments for help when they cannot attract enough trade – in one recent instance following a decision by Ryanair to cut routes.…

EUROPEAN accountants are looking to the negotiations for a free trade agreement between the USA and the European Union (EU) with the hope that it will make it easier for them to switch shores of the Atlantic to practice their profession.…

THE IRISH government has been threatened by legal action by the European Commission unless it reforms its taxation of ‘termination payments’ – lump sums paid to employees leaving a company. These are taxed at a lower rate for Ireland-based companies within a multinational group, than for group companies based elsewhere in the European Union (EU).…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) will have to make concessions on meat in its negotiations with the US for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a senior European Commission official warned last night (Tuesday). John Clarke, director for international affairs at the European Commission’s directorate general (DG) for agriculture said: “We will have to reduce our tariffs in areas like meat.”…

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 Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has concluded that the sweetener aspartame is safe for human consumption at current recommended levels of consumption. Following a review of evidence provided both by animal and human studies, EFSA experts have ruled out a potential risk of aspartame causing damage to genes and inducing cancer for most consumers.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

THE UNITED Kingdom imports more than 50% of its demand for natural gas and this will exceed 85% by 2030 according to National Grid, which owns and operates Britain’s high pressure National Transmission System (NTS) for gas.…

THE UNITED Kingdom imports more than 50% of its demand for natural gas and this will exceed 85% by 2030 according to National Grid, which owns and operates Britain’s high pressure National Transmission System (NTS) for gas.

Increasing dependence on piped supplies from Norway and through interconnectors from continental Europe as well as imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) are raising questions about the security of both supply and prices

As older nuclear plants and coal fired power stations close, the fact that large scale renewables take time to develop means gas will be needed more frequently to fire combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power stations to compensate, for example, for fluctuating output from offshore wind farms.…

NEW national origin labelling rules for pork, sheep, goat and poultry meat made in the European Union (EU) could reduce the trade in meat products between the 28 EU countries, EU senior meat industry figures have warned. In a joint statement, Jean-Luc Mériaux, secretary general of the European Livestock and Meat Trading Union (UECBV) and Detlef Stachetzki, manager at the German meat industry federation (VDF – Verband der Fleischwirtschaft) said: “The rule gives rise to the belief of EU citizens that products produced in their own country are better/safer/healthier/ than the products from other countries.”…

Northern Irish beef farmers have welcomed Singapore’s decision to allow UK beef imports an “excellent marketing opportunity for their quality grass fed Northern Irish beef”. The province’s beef and sheep business is one of Europe’s most dominant regional sectors, comparing its turnover to other local industries.…

WINNERS AND LOSERS

RETAIL

WINNERS

ASOS

Fashion retailer ASOS showed online convenience and price are still a winning combination with shoppers. The UK-based online retailer continued its impressive trajectory this year, announcing pre-tax profit had reached GBP54.7m (US$88.3m) for the year ending 31 August, compared to GBP40m in the same period of last year, with retail sales jumping 40% to GBP753.8m, up from GBP537.9m last year. …

THE DIPLOMATIC stand-off between the European Union (EU) and Russia over their respective links to Ukraine throws into stark light the EU’s desire to secure energy security of supply and to decrease its reliance on an unpredictable Russian government. These needs were reflected in the announcement in October of a list of 248 energy infrastructure projects that the EU wants built in in the next decade, all in some way connecting EU member countries through electricity, gas and oil links.…

MALAWI’S government is working furiously to win back international donor support suspended over a multi-million euro corruption scandal involving dozens of officials and ministers close to the country’s leader, Joyce Banda, southern Africa’s first female president. Bill Corcoran reports from Lilongwe.…

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has voted to reduce the support the European Union (EU) gives to the traditional biofuel sector, backing European Commission proposals to amend the renewable energy directive (2009/28/EC). MEPs agreed that the law should insist that first-generation biofuels (from long-standing sources, notably food crops) should not exceed 6% of EU energy consumption in transport by 2020, compared to the 10% target for all biofuels in the existing legislation.…

COMMUNICATIONS service providers (CSP) look increasingly to managed services for their operational support system (OSS) and base system substation (BSS) applications.

“One reason is that CSPs and operators are gaining confidence in the managed services model,” according to Matt Hooper, chief marketing officer at Warrington, UK-based MDS, a leading technology and services company in this space.…

THE COST of making Bangladeshi garment factories safe would add USD0.10 cents to each garment shipped out of Bangladesh over the next five years, Ismat Jahan, the ambassador of Bangladesh to the European Union (EU) said yesterday.

Speaking in a meeting of the European Parliament’s international trade committee organised to take stock of the progress in Bangladesh following the Rana Plaza factory collapse in April, Jahan said the overall cost of making her country’s factories fully compliant with structural and fire safety rules would be about USD3 billion (EUR2.24 billion).…

THE EUROPEAN Parliament (EP) has sharply criticised Norway for imposing heavy duties on imports of beef and lamb from the European Union (EU), calling on the European Commission to assess possible retaliation.

A strongly worded resolution agreed today (Thursday July 4), MEPs urged the Commission to continue putting Norway under pressure to lift or ease the duties.…

A FINAL compromise on planned European Union (EU) laws on the timing of auditors’ rotation should be somewhere between the two proposed extremes of six years and 25 years, the EU internal market Commissioner Michel Barnier is arguing, as EU ministers and MEPs grope towards a deal on the issue.…

AIRPORTS and air traffic controllers could soon use data generated from supercomputers to solve many of their safety and capacity challenges.

High performance computing (HPC), which makes billions of calculations per second, is already being used by the aviation sector for forecasting weather and in designing aircraft – notably for engines, said Alastair McKinstry, environmental sciences activity leader at the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC).…

AN AGREEMENT was struck last night in Brussels over plans to introduce a 95 grams of CO2 emissions per kilometer target for new automobiles sold in the European Union (EU) by 2020. Representatives from the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers thrashed out solutions to remaining disagreements about how these emissions are assessed, long term targets and special exemptions for auto-makers making ultra-low emission vehicles.…

REPRESENTATIVES of the European Parliament, the European Union (EU) governments and of the European Commission reached a deal today how producer organisations can represent beef and veal producers under a revised EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Under the new system, veal and beef producer organisations will be authorised to negotiate contracts for the supply of live cattle for slaughter on behalf of their members as long as “the quantity of beef and veal production covered by such negotiations which is produced in any particular member state does not exceed 15 % of the total national production of each product covered by the negotiations,” according to the agreed legislative text.…

SUCCESSFUL meat producers will be breathing a sigh of a relief that the newly agreed reform of the European Union’s (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will not punish them as severely as they feared.

A key thread of the reform was decoupling subsidies from production, so livestock farmers got a subsidy linked to farm hectares.…

EUROPEAN biofuel industry knew it was in for a rough ride when the European Commission announced last October that it would stop subsiding food-based biofuels from 2020 and support the production of secondary biofuels based on waste matter and algae. But maybe it was not prepared for how the European Parliament would try to amend the proposals by introducing regulatory distinctions between types of biofuels that discriminate against biodiesel.…

AT a time when the world seems increasingly led by lifelong politicians, it is perhaps refreshing to hear from a political leader who has a solid background in business, and such is former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Speaking to Accountancy Futures, he showed how more than half-a-century of business and public life can be brought to bear in financial and commercial mentorship.…

POLITICAL battle-lines are being drawn over the oncoming debates at the European Parliament and the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers on the shape of the revised tobacco products directive. While formal amendments have yet to be proposed, preliminary discussions are giving the industry a good idea of the challenges to be faced over the coming months.…

A LACK of proper controls by European Union (EU) countries and dissuasive sanctions on fraud in the food chain are the causes of the current horsemeat scandal ravaging Europe, EU health and consumer policy Commissioner Tonio Borg has declared.

Members of the European Parliament’s health and food safety committee agreed with him during a meeting in Brussels on Thursday.…

MEMBERS of the European Parliament’s public health and food safety committee asked last night for horsemeat supplies within the European Union (EU) to be subjected to better traceability requirements because of the ongoing labelling scandal. “We have very strict rules on the traceability of bovines, and we need better traceability of horsemeat,” said an Irish member of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) Mairead McGuinness speaking during a debate at the parliament’s Brussels building.…

TWO property fraudsters who rooked Allied Irish Banks (AIB) and Bank of Scotland (BoS) for hundreds of millions of pounds in loans were jailed for a total of 12 years in London on January 17, in a case exposing lax lending oversight during the 2003-2008 boom years.…

TRADITIONAL herbal medicine in Africa may have its critics, but some conventional nurses say it should be taken more seriously and be given a proper career path and mire training. Take Kenya – its ministry of public health and sanitation indicates the country’s conventional hospitals, health centres, dispensaries and clinics cater for only 30% of the population.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

STANDING firmly in the middle of the Wi-Fi, cloud, and M2M revolutions has delivered explosive growth for Openet, an Irish based global leader of real-time transaction management software and services.

The middleware firm’s story and strategy neatly illustrates challenges facing operators and the solutions that innovation can provide.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a strategy designed to encourage the growth of cloud computing and data services, especially through the development of common standards and certification.

Brussels’ policy paper (called a Communication) ‘Unleashing the potential of cloud computing in Europe’ is a wide-ranging action plan that is designed especially to promote interoperability between cloud services.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE LAUNCH of a new association promoting personalised medicines across the European Union (EU) has been welcomed at the European Parliament. The European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) has released a manifesto setting out detailed policies promoting the development of such pharmaceuticals, and rolling out the healthcare reforms required to administer them.…

BY MARK GAO, IN BEIJING

THE LEADER of China’s meat industry has told the country’s annual national meat conference that his sector is starting to consolidate and move away from its past reliance on small businesses. China Meat Association (CMA) secretary general Chen Wei noted that only 20% of the country’s 10,000-plus slaughter houses were large in scale, with the rest "artisanal or unmechanised."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered the Irish government to recoup unfairly earned revenues from airlines dominating Irish airports after ruling illegal a departure tax penalising flights serving destinations 300km or more from Dublin. Passengers for these slots have been charged Euro EUR10 since 2009, while flights to destinations closer to the Irish capital have attracted just EUR2 in tax.…

BY CARMEN PAUN, IN BRUSSELS; DAVID HAYHURST, IN PARIS; MICHAEL KOSMIDES; AND KEITH NUTHALL

THE DEBATE about whether compulsion or voluntarism best aids energy efficiency is one of the oldest in the electricity sectors: do we save more energy by being ordered to switch off the lights; or by being advised our bills will fall if we do?…

BY CARMEN PAUN, IN BRUSSELS, AND ROB STOKES

CRITICS of European Commission proposals for sweeping changes to audit practice and market regulation probably have a year or so to influence the final outcome.

This emerged in The CA’s interview with Jonathan Faull, the Commission’s director general for internal markets & services, about the so-called ‘Barnier proposals’ put forward by the European Union’s (EU) internal market Commissioner Michel Barnier.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPE’S confectionery industry is fighting rearguard moves at the European Parliament to delay the abolition of European Union (EU) quotas on EU sugar production. A report from French conservative MEP Michel Dantin on the new EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has proposed that the quotas stay until 2020 – they are currently to be phased out by 2015.…

BY MARK GODFREY, IN BEIJING

CHINA’S meat imports exceeded its exports in 2011 according to figures collected by the country’s China Meat Association (CMA). China exported 894,000 tonnes of meat in 2011 valued USD3.47 billion while meat imports totalled 1.9 million tonnes, valued USD3.42 billion.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ALUMINA producers in Ireland, Italy and France have escaped an order from the European Commission that they pay their respective governments additional excise duty for heavy fuel oil they bought between 2002 and 2003. Brussels had told them to pay up because the companies had enjoyed a reduced rate of duty, which the Commission concluded was an illegal disguised subsidy.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

WITH the global organic food market in a state of exponential growth, a new trade deal between the world’s two biggest organic food producers – the United States and the European Union (EU) – could significantly boost organic food and drink sales in both their markets, currently valued at more than USD50 billion annually combined.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has approved the appointment of Irish finance ministry secretary general Kevin Cardiff to the European Court of Auditors, against the advice of its own budgetary control committee. It had opposed his serving on the European Union’s financial watchdog over its claims that Cardiff had overseen a Euro EUR3.6 billion accounting error at the ministry.…

BY PETER DA COSTA and KEITH NUTHALL

IRELAND’s Electric Supply Board (ESB) has secured a Euro EUR235 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to improve the performance of national energy networks. Signed on November 17, the agreement is designed to enable Irish power lines to better transmit coastal wind energy to populated areas, to introduce smart metering and develop re-charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.…

BY MARK ROWE

CO-GENERATION (or combined-heat and power – CHP) plants operate using a variety of technologies: gas turbines, fuel cells, Stirling engines, gas or diesel engines and combined cycle gas turbines. According to the Joint Research Centre (JRC) – the European Union’s (EU) scientific and technical research body – natural gas is currently the preferred fuel across Europe for co-gen, with combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) and gas turbine plants expected to become the predominant future technology for large-scale units.…

BY JENNIFER BRAY

THE IMF may have been in Dublin last Friday, but around the corner piggy banks had been broken and mattress money uncovered as buyers queued for a chance to bid for what they considered a property bargain. More than EUR15 million was spent at the auction with 83 of the 84 properties selling on the day.…

BY NEIL CALLANAN

THE CHOICE of The Shelbourne Hotel on Dublin’s St Stephen’s Green for Ireland’s first major post-recession property auction could not have been better. The grand dame of Irish hotels in many ways serves as a microcosm of the boom and the bust of the Irish property market over the last decade.…

BY LEE ADENDOORF, KEITH NUTHALL and MJ DESCHAMPS

EUROPEAN Union (EU) governments are facing a political crossroads on a key question whose answer will have an important impact on the EU knitwear sector – both manufacturers and retail. That is the issue of rules of origin and whether there should be an EU-wide law that says clothing and accessories (plus a wide range of other manufactured goods) should be sold with labels saying which country they are made in, if they are imported from outside the EU.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

Driven by consumer preference and regulation, the replacement of solvent based coatings with water-based ones has been a slow but steady process, beginning in earnest at the turn of the century in the USA, followed by Britain and Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

18

THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the takeover by Unilever of Sara Lee’s body and laundry care businesses, on condition it sells off the US company’s Sanex brand and related business in Europe. Following an inquiry as the European Union’s (EU) lead competition authority, Brussels concluded there were particular concerns regarding Unilever’s future dominance of some EU deodorant markets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) consumer protection network RAPEX has warned of a series of hair-care products being discovered containing substances banned by the EU cosmetics directive. Czech authorities banned Polish product hair dye 111 Noix Dore for containing 2-nitro-p-phenylenendiamine and hydroquinone.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FACED with criticism from the European Ombudsman over a lack of openness, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) board has endorsed a new policy on handling written requests for access to its scientific documents. The details should be released in November and come into force immediately.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE GERMAN government is giving Euro EUR1.2 million to a UN project expanding and upgrading small and medium-sized generic pharmaceutical manufacturers in Asia and Africa. It is run by the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and aims to spread medicine manufacture across a continent where production is mainly concentrated in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

ASSET recovery is increasingly being regarded as an important law enforcement tool in Europe, with techniques becoming more sophisticated and integrated with prosecutions and investigations. The fundamental approach here is not new. ‘Go after the money’ has been a commonplace of law enforcement in the financial sector since at least the time of Al Capone.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

IF those responsible for the numerous ‘ghost’ and unfinished estates in the Republic of Ireland had been hoping that overseas property companies might be tempted to take them on, following a slight recovery in the Irish market, the news that Ireland has once more sunk into recession makes that now very unlikely for the foreseeable future.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ENCOURAGEMENT from peers is always a good way to inspire the adoption of good practice. The British recycling sector is no different, especially local authorities, who are often members of networks, associations and federations. Also, given the UK remains an actively engaged member of the European Union (EU), its local and regional authorities receive advice and guidance on boosting their waste management strategies from European bodies as well as national ones.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Ombudsman has made another demand that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) releases information about pharmaceuticals gathered during market approval assessments. P. Nikiforos Diamandouros has branded EMA guilty of maladministration when refusing Danish researchers access to clinical study reports and trial protocols for two anti-obesity drugs, not named in his ruling.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

WITH a vivid metallic facade of mirror-like copper plates and Hindi ‘Mudr?’ hand sculptures at the arrival lounge of the brand new terminal building, the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI) in New Delhi is acclaimed by its developers as "the gateway to modern India."…

BY KARRYN MILLER,EMMA JACKSON and ALAN OSBORN

BY KARRYN MILLER, in Washington DC, EMMA JACKSON, in Ottawa, and ALAN OSBORN, in London

CONVENIENCE stores are a dynamic part of the food retail sector worldwide. In short, as consumers gain wealth, they lose time – making convenience retail increasingly attractive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Medicines Agency’s (EMA) management board has re-elected Pat O’Mahony, chief executive of the Irish Medicines Board, as chair for a second three-year mandate.

*EMA has released a guideline on the quality, non-clinical and clinical aspects of medicinal products containing genetically modified cells – http://www.ema.europa.eu/pdfs/human/genetherapy/67163908en.pdf;…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Medicines Agency (EMA) has come under pressure from the European Ombudsman to release information held on adverse reactions to drugs in trials. The official, Nikiforos Diamandouros, has said EU rules on releasing information associated with its decision-making "apply to all documents held by EMA".…

BY SYMON ROSS

A DECISION over whether George Best Belfast City Airport, in Northern Ireland, can extend its runway may drag on towards 2011, after the matter was referred to Northern Ireland’s independent Planning Appeals Commission. It will probably hold an inquiry in September and give a decision in December – almost two years after a proposal was first formally presented to planners.…

BY GEORGE STONE

THE DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo (DRC) is moving towards giving permission to a consortium led by Irish independent Tullow Oil to develop oil and gas production on its side of Lake Albert, government officials have signalled. Kinshasa, DRC’s capital city, is currently a minnow in Africa’s oil producer’s league, pumping just 25,000 barrels per day (bpd) while the continent’s leading exporters Nigeria and Angola are hitting the 2 million bpd mark.…

BY MONIKA HANLEY

RIGA International Airport, located 13 km from the bustling Latvian capital is on the brink of undergoing major infrastructure changes. Its profile is high given it won the best airport in Scandinavia and the Baltic region at the prestigious 2009 OAG [Official Airline Guide] -Routes Airport Marketing Awards, beating the competition in richer countries such as Sweden and Denmark.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, nominated the next EU Commissioner for research, science and innovation, has ambitiously promised MEPs her aim is nothing less than the completion of a European Research Area (ERA), where researchers’ work can be undertaken in all 27 member states.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH

THE NEW team of European Union (EU) Commissioners due to assume office for the next five years on February 1 are expected to revamp the EU’s nanotechnology legislation, an issue of critical importance to the personal care product industry.…

BY EMMA JACKSON, KEITH NUTHALL, ALAN OSBORN, PAUL COCHRANE and BILL CORCORAN

WEST Africa is becoming a key region in the booming trade of illicit cigarettes, counterfeit copies of premium brands and smuggled properly branded and manufactured sticks. So much money is being made by criminals using this often-chaotic region as a hub to receive illicit sticks and then distribute them throughout Africa that this trade is becoming a matter of serious concern to the United Nations and even NATO.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

OUTSPOKEN European Union (EU) information society Commissioner Viviane Reding is to leave her position in Brussels when the new European Commission is confirmed in January. The Luxembourger will be replaced by a tough Dutch free-market liberal Neelie Kroes who takes on a renamed post of digital agenda Commissioner.…

By David Haworth, in Brussels

Next Monday, (19/10) Mrs. Catherine Day will deliver the most important speech of her life.

Who is she, you’ll probably ask. Indeed, for someone of immense influence this tall, blond middle-aged Irishwoman is a reclusive figure, shy – not writing very much, still less seeking out audiences.

But, as the secretary general of the European Commission, the lady is the power behind Commission president José Manuel Barroso’s throne.

She is the institution’s leaderene though hiding behind the good manners and discretion of a classic civil servant. Catherine Day is seldom heard and rarely seen.

In a few days, however, she will stand before a huge audience of colleagues to explain to them how the clumsily-titled ‘external action service’ is to be developed and how it will affect their working lives.…

By David Haworth, in Brussels

Next Monday, (19/10) Mrs. Catherine Day will deliver the most important speech of her life.

Who is she, you’ll probably ask. Indeed, for someone of immense influence this tall, blond middle-aged Irishwoman is a reclusive figure, shy – not writing very much, still less seeking out audiences.

But, as the secretary general of the European Commission, the lady is the power behind Commission president José Manuel Barroso’s throne.

She is the institution’s leaderene though hiding behind the good manners and discretion of a classic civil servant. Catherine Day is seldom heard and rarely seen.

In a few days, however, she will stand before a huge audience of colleagues to explain to them how the clumsily-titled ‘external action service’ is to be developed and how it will affect their working lives.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has welcomed its receipt tonight (27-10) in Brussels of a declaration from 50 representatives of European electricity generators, power distributors and energy industry associations to create a standardised re-charging system for electric vehicles. European Union (EU) transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani, whose organisation is charged with removing barriers to business between the 27 EU member countries, declared satisfaction with the commitment, made without the urging of European legislation.…

BY GEORGE STONE

AIRPORTS Company South Africa (ACSA) will be responsible for handling 450,000 international arrivals when the country hosts the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) 2010 World Cup next summer.

The biggest-ever sporting event on African soil starts on June 11 next year and will run to July 11 with games stretching from the former township of Soweto in Johannesburg to the natural beauty of Cape Town.…

By David Haworth, in Brussels

By the time you read this, Ireland’s second attempt to ratify the Lisbon Treaty may have succeeded and thunderous pieties about the nation’s wisdom, maturity and farsightedness in reaching the “right” decision will be heard in all the continent’s chancelleries.

Thus the only European Union (EU) member to hold a referendum on this agreement will have been punched to the canvas by fear (the devastating recession) and loathing (the EU institutions and other capitals).

True, the Treaty’s legislative journey is not yet over.…

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 KEITH NUTHALL

IT is a little like the election of a Pope. The five-yearly reappointment of the European Commission – now underway – is shrouded in complex procedure and murky backroom deals. Closed discussions between Europe’s power-brokers in Brussels offices, embassies and national capitals divide up the available positions – currently there are 27: one per member state.…

 By David Haworth, in Brussels

Among many things the ambitious Swedish presidency of the European Union hopes to achieve in the next five months is a revival of the so-called ‘Lisbon Process’. The what? A few may recall this initiative was launched in 2000 to chart the way the EU would become “the world’s most dynamic, knowledge-based economy.” Rhetorically it became a bouncy castle for politicians, left and right, who could jump up and down with ‘Lisbon’, confident of its crowd-pleasing potential, in Brussels and Strasbourg at least.

But the applause soon died – so much so the whole effort had to be revived a mere five years after it began.

It hasn’t been going great guns since then, either. Not unreasonably, however, EU officials think it’s worth taking out of the drawer in the context of the worst recession since the war.…

By David Haworth

Among many things the ambitious Swedish presidency of the European Union hopes to achieve in the next five months is a revival of the so-called ‘Lisbon Process’.

The what?

A few may recall this initiative was launched in 2000 to chart the way the EU would become "the world’s most dynamic, knowledge-based economy."…

 By David Haworth, in Brussels

No sooner has Sweden unveiled plans for the next six months of political endeavour in the European Union, than the wheel has fallen off before the new model can even be test driven. The Swedes who assumed the EU’s rotating presidency on July 1, had predicated their efforts on a quick reappointment of Jose Manuel Barroso, 53, the genial European Commission president, for another five years’ office.

The former Portuguese premier received the unanimous “political support” of EU leaders during their recent Summit. This endorsement, you might think, would be enough to confirm the head boy in his position for another term. But no, the presidency job is in the final gift of the European Parliament – and this is where the Swedish calculations have gone wrong.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ACCORDING to a report released by European Commission opinion polling organisation Eurobarometer, 55% of European Union (EU) citizens agree that adding a colour picture to text-only health warnings on tobacco products packaging would strengthen anti-smoking messages. Support for such images is underlined by EU citizens fearing the weakness of current health warnings, sometimes restricted to words.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

POTENTIALLY important findings for developing anti-bacterial drugs have been discovered by German, Swiss and Irish scientists. They identified 39 proteins interacting with bacteria damaging and entering human cells. Until now, only a few proteins had been listed, said a Cell Host and Microbe journal note.…

BY SYMON ROSS

THE SIPTU (Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union) in Ireland expressed concern this month (May) the country’s Health and Safety Authority (HSA) has inadequate resources to carry out workplace inspections.

The union said with 200,000 workplaces in the Republic of Ireland and only around 14,000 workplace assessments annually, a business could wait more than 14 years for a safety check from an HSA inspector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MAJOR cigarette smuggling boom is being reported in Ireland by customs teams, with a record 135.2 million cigarettes being seized last year, almost twice the amount seized in 2007. Of these, 56.82 million were counterfeits, the country’s Sunday Independent newspaper has reported.…

By Thompson Ayodele, in Lagos

As the Group of 20 top industrialised and developing economies prepared to meet in London, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon warned them that "the economic crisis may soon be compounded by an equally severe crisis of global instability." A key problem is that trade is deteriorating every day and political pressures demand import restrictions to protect employment. This is no way out: such protectionism would make this particular depression ‘Great’. 

Everyone says trade is the best way out – but on their own terms: last November, the G20 leaders signed a pledge against protectionism yet, in the second half of 2008, 17 out of the G20 passed 47 restrictions of trade, the World Bank claims. …

BY SYMON ROSS

IRELAND’S largest bank Allied Irish Banks (AIB) has been accused of major accounting deficiencies by its former chief internal auditor, who has also attached the performance of the Irish Financial Regulator. In testimony to the Oireachtas [Irish parliament] joint committee on economic regulatory affairs this week (NOTE – TUESDAY) Eugene McErlean – the AIB group internal auditor from 1997 to 2002 – alleged years of overcharging of customers by managers under pressure to meet targets.…

By Monica Dobie

Universities examining pedigree dogs may provide some answers to the mystery of genetic illnesses in people through a new European Union (EU)-funded project called LUPA. It will try to pinpoint such disorders in pure bred canines. The work could prove to be valuable as humans share many of the same diseases.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

DOGS may provide some answers to the mystery of genetic illnesses in people through a new European Union (EU) project called LUPA that will try to pinpoint such disorders in canines. The work could prove to be valuable as humans share many of the same diseases.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

DOGS may provide some answers to the mystery of genetic disorders in people through a new European Union (EU) project called LUPA that will try to pinpoint genetic disorders in purebred canines.

The 12 EU countries involved in the scheme (including Britain – where the University of Cambridge and others are participating) will collect 10,000 DNA samples from pedigree dogs that are either healthy or suffering from certain diseases.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

IT is one of nursing’s unlikelier medical developments, but those often pampered pedigree dogs that make an exhibition of themselves at Crufts may actually be a lynchpin to fighting genetic diseases in humans.

Veterinary clinics from 12 European countries will collect 10,000 DNA samples from a large cohort of dogs either healthy or suffering from a range of 18 defined diseases of relevance to human health such as cancer, heart disease and epilepsy.…

BY PHILIPPA JONES, in Paris; ANDREW CAVE, in Oxford; and SYMON ROSS, in Belfast

IT is a tough time in the European petrol retail market at present. High prices last year have been followed by a global recession. It is no wonder fuel sales are depressed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE FIRST major effort to limit the overexploitation of western and central Pacific yellowfin and bigeye tuna stocks has been made. The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) has approved a 30% reduction over three years of bigeye tuna catches and also a two month ban on floating platforms used to attract both species, which will be extended to three months in 2010.…

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 KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered European Union (EU)-funded emergency storage of up to 30,000 tonnes of healthy Irish pigmeat, following a collapse in demand caused by the country’s dioxin contamination crisis. Brussels will pay for the meat to be stored for up to six months – long enough it hopes for memories of the scandal to fade and Irish pigmeat prices to recover.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered European Union (EU)-funded emergency storage of up to 30,000 tonnes of healthy Irish pigmeat, following a collapse in demand caused by the country’s dioxin contamination crisis. Brussels will pay for the meat to be stored for up to six months – long enough it hopes for memories of the scandal to fade and Irish pigmeat prices to recover.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A CONTROLLED opening of Arctic fisheries made more accessible because of the steady retreat of polar ice through climate change has been called for in a European Commission policy paper.

It wants "a regulatory framework for [those] Arctic high seas not yet covered by an international conservation and management regime before new fishing opportunities arise," saying no fisheries should be opened for any country until such controls are established.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is preparing to order cross-border European Union (EU) restrictions on selling Irish pork and pork products following the discovery of widespread dioxin contamination. Today (Mon Dec 8), Brussels said it would "organise within very short notice" a meeting with food safety authorities of EU countries importing potentially contaminated Irish pork "to share information and to ensure a harmonised enforcement approach."…

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 KEITH NUTHALL

IRISH consumer protection authorities have reported the withdrawal of American skin toning cream with vitamin E and sunscreen Clear-n-Smooth, saying its 2% hydroquinone concentration breaks the European Union’s (EU) cosmetics directive. EU product alert service RAPEX also noted the withdrawal from Irish cosmetics shops of Ivory Coast-made lightening body oil Peau Claire over illegal hydroquinone concentrations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have formally approved reductions to total allowable catches (TACs) in the Baltic Sea, with the aim of conserving stocks. That said, ministers did not reduce catches to the levels preferred by the European Commission: western Baltic herring catches have been cut by 39%, while Brussels wanted a 63% reduction: the Commission was mollified by a commitment from ministers to establish a long-term management plan for this stock.…

BY MONICA DOBIE, JULIAN RYALL, and PHILIPPA JONES

COMPARED to their counterparts in Europe and Asia, North American men are at the bottom of the league tables for using beauty products, leaving male cosmetics marketers with both a lot of work, and a lot opportunity.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

INTRODUCTION

About 10 years ago the American distiller JB Wagoner decided to market a fiery liquor made from the cactus-like agave plants growing in the hills on his estate at Temecula in California. He called it "temequila." It soon became known as "the American tequila," proving indistinguishable in taste, texture and effect from the well-known Mexican drink.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has called for a complete ban on discarding cod at sea, with fishing vessels being told to land all cod, helping scientific assessments of stocks. In a formal response to the European Commission’s latest cod recovery plan, MEPs also agreed to the inclusion of the Celtic Sea (south of the Irish Sea) in the cod recovery plan.…

BY MARK ROWE

THE PSYCHOLOGY of colour has fascinated philosophers and scientists down the ages, so it is perhaps unsurprising that the world’s paint companies devote much of their time to working out why consumers prefer certain colours for certain everyday items – and why these tastes vary so much across the world.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has unveiled its operational programme for the European Fisheries Fund in Ireland, announcing that the European Union (EU) would be spending Euro 42.2 million on the Irish fishing sector from 2007-13. The EU spending is a significant reduction from the Euro 70 million spent in Ireland under the old Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance from 2000-2006.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) product safety network RAPEX has reported a series of EU market withdrawals of personal care products because they contain substances banned under the EU cosmetics directive:

*Estonia banned two lines of Turkish nail polish Mirra lux for including dibutyl phthalate (6.17% by weight);

*Ivory Coast-made whitening cream Lightening Beauty Crème has been withdrawn from the Irish market for containing hydroquinone (3.8%); and

*Portugal has blocked the sale of Italian hair colouring cream Color Contrast for containing the banned substance m-phenylenediamine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN ADVOCATE general of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has declared that an Irish initiative designed to reduce over-capacity in Ireland’s beef processing sector breaks European Union (EU) competition law.

In a formal opinion, Verica Trstenjak found illegal the operation of Ireland’s Beef Industry Development Society Ltd (BIDS), which was formed in 2002 to unite most of the country’s processors – accounting for 93% of beef sold in the country.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has censured Ireland for breaking the urban waste water directive by discharging dirty sewage in the communities of Bray, Howth, Letterkenny, Shanganagh, Sligo, and Tramore. Judges agreed with the European Commission that the Irish government should have subjected this waste water to secondary treatment.…

BY MARK GODFREY

A BILLION people watched recently when China’s top two dairy companies Yili and Mengniu took the prime slot Chinese television advertisements immediately after the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics Games. Being onscreen for the most important TV event in modern Chinese history is a sign of how fast dairy has grown in a land accustomed to soy milk.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) product safety network RAPEX has reported a series of EU market withdrawals of personal care products because they contain substances banned under the EU cosmetics directive:

*Estonia banned two lines of Turkish nail polish Mirra lux for including dibutyl phthalate (6.17% by weight);

*Ivory Coast-made whitening cream Lightening Beauty Crème has been withdrawn from the Irish market for containing hydroquinone (3.8%); and

*Portugal has blocked the sale of Italian hair colouring cream Color Contrast for containing the banned substance m-phenylenediamine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has censured Ireland for breaking the urban waste water directive by discharging dirty sewage in the communities of Bray, Howth, Letterkenny, Shanganagh, Sligo, and Tramore. Judges agreed with the European Commission that the Irish government should have subjected this waste water to secondary treatment.…

By Eric Lyman in Rome

There are problems in the world that cannot be confronted with any success by a single state, no matter how powerful. Big environmental issues and world hunger and poverty immediately come to mind, along with many regional peacekeeping needs and most economic and trade-related problems.

Enter multilateralism, the consensus-driven process that democratically pulls countries together for collective problem solving, usually under the auspices of an umbrella organisation such as the United Nations or the World Trade Organisation.

Multilateralism has been hailed as the natural evolution from the bipolar world order that marked the period after World War II – with influence split between the camps of US and the Soviet Union – and the unipolar order based on the power and influence of the US since the end of the Cold War.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRITAIN and Ireland have become the first European countries to sign an agreement creating a cross-border functional airspace block. The deal allows airlines to liaise with one set of air-traffic controllers when crossing Irish and British airspace, with the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) working with Britain’s Air Traffic Control Service (NATS).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

HEALTH campaigners pressed politicians at a European Parliament hearing in Brussels to exclude the tobacco industry from debates where it could influence public health policies. Hosted by Irish Fine Gael MEP Avril Doyle and pressure group the Smoke Free Partnership, the hearing was addressed by new EU health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou and attended by other senior MEPs.…

BY BILL CORCORAN, in Lilongwe, Malawi

A NEW initiative to improve the health, wealth and environment of Africans is being driven by the Kyoto Protocol’s international trades in carbon credits. This allows wealthy developed countries to scale back their emission reductions, if they can invest in slashing greenhouse gas pollution abroad.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers are debating an urgent rescue package for a European fishing sector that is being buffeted by high fuel prices. European Commission officials are drafting formal proposals, which would suspend certain European Fisheries Fund subsidy controls for two years.…

David Haworth, in Brussels

Outside Ireland, the recent passing of at 85 of Dr. P.J. Hillery – “Paddy” to his friends -was little noticed yet his achievements as a statesman were huge.

The son of a country doctor, he became a general practitioner himself but slipped, unobtrusively at first, into Irish politics.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IMPROVED cooperation between fisheries authorities in the European Union (EU) and Russia is to be established, following the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Brussels and Moscow. The deal covers fishing grounds in the Baltic and the north Atlantic and involves better contacts between the European Commission and Russia’s state committee for fisheries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling has swept away a European Commission block on Irish fishermen replacing ships lost at sea with larger and safer vessels. Brussels had been resisting plans of Ocean Trawlers Ltd, of Killybegs; Thomas Flaherty, of Mainster; and Larry Murphy, of Brandyhill; all in Ireland, to replace sunk vessels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has pushed for more concrete collaboration between African and European Union (EU) researchers, amidst concerns that grand declarations of altruistic intentions are failing to deliver cash or expertise.

A formal resolution passed by parliament members (MEPs) called for a "special emphasis [to] be placed on research into AIDS in African countries" within the EU’s ongoing seventh framework programme on research, which commands a huge Euro 53.2 billion budget, nearly three times the total GDP of Kenya.…

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 EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has declared illegal under European Union (EU) compulsory insurance laws, Irish regulations that fail to provide cover to all road accident victims entering a vehicle knowing its driver was uninsured. The ECJ said Ireland erred by not restricting that exclusion to passengers in a vehicle whose driver caused an accident.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A CONSULTANTS report written for the European Commission has warned that registered passenger schemes designed to identify certain passengers as a low risk in security terms could make controls less effective if used insensitively. Written by Accenture, Daon, and the Irish Aviation Authority, the report argues that because "precise criteria to assess passengers as ‘lower than average risk’ are hard to define because of a lack of clear criteria…that passengers are not classified as ‘high-risk’ does not automatically mean they qualify as ‘lower than average’ risk."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) order could force the Irish government to improve and expand its mandatory training programmes for road hauliers. The European Commission has asked judges to rule Ireland’s current training system is too scant to meet the safety standards required by the European Union’s (EU) directive on training professional drivers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MEMBERS of the European Parliament have called for a "common-sense" easing of "complicated" spot-checks on food industry suppliers, required for the payments of European Union (EU) subsidies. These checks cover food health standards, livestock welfare, environmental production controls and others, but a parliament motion agreed that since they were introduced in 2003, they have "proved very complicated to manage", especially for local regulators and small-scale farmers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) order could force the Irish government to improve and expand its mandatory training programmes for professional passenger and goods vehicle drivers. The European Commission has asked judges to rule Ireland’s current training system is too scant to meet the safety standards required by the European Union’s (EU) directive on training professional drivers.…

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

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have been asked to approve an increase in the exploitation by EU ships of the rich tuna stocks surrounding Indian Ocean island archipelago the Seychelles. EU fishing businesses will have to pay for the privilege however: whilst the general limit on EU tonnage accessing Seychelles waters should rise from 55,000 to 63,000 tonnes, the money paid by vessel operators will rise from Euro 25 to 35 per tonne per annum, which would – said a note from the European Commission – bring fees in line with other EU tuna access agreements.…

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

A PROPOSED ban on all commercial fishing in Atlantic waters near cool water coral reefs off western Ireland has been tabled by the European Commission. It follows a request for action from the Irish government. If European Union (EU) ministers agree, the ban would cover around 2,500 km2 of Atlantic waters: the Belgica Mound; the Hovland Mound; Northwest and Southwest Porcupine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has welcomed a cooperation agreement struck between the British and Irish governments to prevent illegal waste shipments across the land border between their two countries. Brussels was threatening legal action over the problem, because it broke European Union (EU) waste shipment rules, but with London and Dublin combining their forces, and tougher waste regulations being approved for Northern Ireland, the Commission has been satisfied.…

BY MARK GODFREY, in Beijing

LISTENING to the war stories being swapped at the Thursday night corporate networking parties that regularly fill Beijing’s five star hotel bars leaves the impression that doing business in China is comparable to sticking your head into a bucket of piranhas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CONCERNS that Brazilian beef producers are hoodwinking international animal and food health regulators by using superficial controls, have prompted European Union (EU) import ban calls. Irish MEP Mairead McGuinness told a European Parliament agriculture committee today (Mon 15-7): “It is important not only from a human health point of view but also from an ethical aspect.”…

BY BILL CORCORAN, in Dublin

THE REPUBLIC of Ireland’s economic growth over the past 15 years has been hailed as one of the success stories of the western world economies; however, in tandem with its economic growth commercial crime has also surfaced at an alarming rate.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

ONE consequence of the growing sophistication of anti-money laundering procedures at the major banks in Europe in recent years is that criminals have turned increasingly to less regulated channels such as bureaux de change and money service businesses to hide criminal proceeds.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
ONE consequence of the growing sophistication of anti-money laundering procedures at the major banks in Europe in recent years is that criminals have turned increasingly to less regulated channels such as bureaux de change and money service businesses to hide criminal proceeds.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government has resigned itself to accepting the presence of Xenohaliotis californiensis in Ireland’s abalone farms, which it reported last year to the Aquatic Animals Commission (of the Office International des Épizooties). Ireland’s ministry of agriculture and food then confirmed four outbreaks affecting 344,000 abalone in counties Cork, Galway and Kerry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government has accepting Xenohaliotis californiensis is “endemic in existing H. tuberculata [abalone] farms in Ireland.”

This follows four outbreaks last year affecting 344,000 abalone in counties Cork, Galway and Kerry and a new infestation at a National University of Ireland, Galway, marine institute.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government has received the latest in a long string of censures from the European Court of Justice for failing to comply with European Union (EU) environmental legislation. In this instance Dublin was condemned for not implementing directive 2003/4/EC guaranteeing public access to environmental information, which was supposed to have been written onto its statute book by February 2005.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FREIGHT Transport Association (FTA) has called for British hauliers to adopt the same road worthiness standards abroad than at home, after a European Commission statistical report indicated a flawed safety record driving in other European Union (EU) countries.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE IRISH public place smoking ban has dramatically reduced air pollution in pubs according to a study from the Research Institute for a Tobacco Free Society in Dublin. Dr Luke Clancy, institute director and four associates measured pollution levels of 42 Dublin pubs and health levels of 73 Dublin bar staff before the ban and one year after the ban.…

BY ANDREW CAVE
THE UNITED Kingdom and Irish Republic governments had anti-terror finance frameworks long before this issue climbed global agendas in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the USA. The fight against terrorism in Northern Ireland over the past 40 years saw to that.…

BY ANDREW CAVE
THE UNITED Kingdom and Irish Republic governments had anti-terror finance frameworks long before this issue climbed global agendas in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the USA. The fight against terrorism in Northern Ireland over the past 40 years saw to that.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NEW fishing access deal has been negotiated between the European Commission and the Ivory Coast. Running six years from this June, the agreement is designed to replace an existing deal in place since 1990. The new deal will focus entirely on tuna, wIth European Union (EU) fishing rights being cut from an existing 9,000 to 7,000 tonnes per year, to be exploited by 25 seiners and 15 surface long liners, (down from 34 and up from 11 respectively under the existing system).The…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Parliamentarians have attacked widespread confiscations at European Union (EU) airports of duty-free alcohol from transit passengers over new anti-terrorist rules. Regulations say intra-EU flight passengers can only carry onboard liquids up to 100 millilitres, in sealed transparent plastic bags.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government is being threatened with potential massive daily recurring fines of Euro 1,000s for failing to comply with European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings over European water quality standards. The European Commission has sent Dublin legal final warning letters.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has dropped its long-running legal action against the Irish government over its previous authorisation of drift-netting at sea, which Brussels had claimed broke the European Union (EU) habitats directive. The Commission based its case on the impact of this fishing technique on wild Atlantic salmon, sending Ireland last year a final legal warning threatening a European Court of Justice (ECJ) case, with judges potentially ordering a drift-net ban.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced another 28 protected food products that can only be marketed in the European Union with their traditional name, if they are produced in their home region using time-honoured production methods. Newly protected products include Corsican olive oil; Flemish almond cake Geraardsbergse mattentaart; Irish Connemara ‘hill lamb’; and others: see http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/newsroom/en/252.htm…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced another 28 protected food products that can only be marketed in the European Union with their traditional name, if they are produced in their home region using time-honoured production methods. Newly protected products include Corsican olive oil; Flemish almond cake Geraardsbergse mattentaart; Irish Connemara ‘hill lamb’; and others: see http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/newsroom/en/252.htm…

BY MONICA DOBIE
EVER wonder how Steve Austin aka the Six Million Dollar Man was able to run at lightning speeds, jump at abnormal heights, see incredible distances and hear whispers from miles away without recharging his bionic batteries?

Personally, I do not recall Steve plugging himself in anywhere and while – as a TV goggling youngster in the 70s – I was too distracted by Mr Austin’s heroic feats to care where he got his electricity from, a new EU funded project prompted me to consider this mystery.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MEPs have attacked widespread confiscations at European Union (EU) airports of duty-free perfume and cosmetics from transit passengers over new anti-terrorist rules. Regulations imposed after the UK bomb plot mean passengers can only carry onboard liquids up to 100 millilitres, in sealed transparent plastic bags.…

BY MARK ROWE
EASTERN Europe, thanks mainly to the preponderance of Soviet-era facilities and Soviet-era standards of maintenance, has long been seen as a potential weak link for the nuclear power industry in safety terms. A vast group of international experts devotes time and resources to maintaining the industry’s record and the nuclear power industry has various arrangements for cooperation among utilities and internationally, among government and United Nations nuclear agencies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MEPs have attacked widespread confiscations at European Union (EU) airports of duty-free alcohol from transit passengers over new anti-terrorist rules. Regulations imposed after the UK bomb plot last year mean intra-EU flight passengers can only carry onboard liquids up to 100 millilitres, in sealed transparent plastic bags.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
WRITERS IN the Republic of Ireland are celebrating a victory at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that will ensure that Irish libraries pay them when their books are borrowed.

Ireland, the ECJ ruled on January 11, went too far from the spirit of the 1992 European directive on lending rights when, in its Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000, it exempted all public libraries from the need to pay public lending rights.…

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 DEIRDRE MASON

*Nurses who wish to join the US forces wherever these are based MUST be a US citizen. Nurses working in the UK who hold US citizenship and who are interested in joining the US Army Nurse Corps can find details of career path and qualifications at: http://armynursecorps.amedd.army.mil…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has dismissed claims from the European Commission that fees demanded by the Irish government for participation in environmental impact assessments (EIA) are illegal. The court has ruled that because the fees are low (Pounds 20 for local authority and Euro 45 for Planning Appeals Board inquiries), they are not an illegal "obstacle to the exercise of the rights of participation" under the EU’s EIA directives 85/337/EEC and 97/11/EC.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IRISH food health officials have been fighting the first ever outbreak of Xenohaliotis Californiensis in the Republic of Ireland, which has been detected in four abalone growing sites in the country’s south-west. Tests confirmed the presence of the pathogen from this summer at Bere Island and Cape Clear – County Cork; Claddaghduff – Galway; and Castlegregory – Kerry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IRELAND has at last put in place pollution reduction programmes designed to protect key shellfish waters, following intense legal pressure from the European Commission. It secured in 2003 from the European Court of Justice a censure of Irish inaction in this regards, with judges saying 14 shellfish waters had been left at risk, breaking the European Union shellfish water directive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved Irish government plans to spend Euro 65.5 million on capital investments in six small regional airports in Ireland. The money will be spent 2006-10 on expanding facilities and improving safety standards at Donegal, Sligo, Knock, Galway, Kerry and Waterford.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

The Dutch are Europe’s top recyclers of household rubbish, recycling 65% of their total waste according to a new study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). Next come the Austrians at 59% and the Germans at 58% says the report though it notes that in parts of Germany some local areas charge per kilo of waste not recycled and the regional collection of recyclable materials goes up to more than 65 per cent.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A BID by a Glencore aluminium subsidiary to shelve a European Commission order it repay an Irish government excise duty exemption on heavy fuel oils has been rejected by the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) Court of First Instance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE LIVESTOCK and Meat Commission for Northern Ireland will benefit from the latest European Commission grants for promoting food sales within the EU. Brussels will subsidise a Northern Irish meat marketing and information campaign with Euro 207,365 over one year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE LIVESTOCK and Meat Commission for Northern Ireland is to benefit from the latest batch of European Commission grants for promoting meat and other foodstuff sales within the European Union (EU). Brussels will subsidise a Northern Irish meat marketing and information campaign with Euro 207,365 over one year, with matching money being demanded from the UK government and local meat producers, the usual condition of such grants.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

OPPOSITION is being voiced within the European Union (EU) to the growing trend of banning smoking in bars and pubs, says an opinion poll by EU pollsters Eurobarometer. While across the EU, 61% of citizens polled support these bans, there were majorities against them in significant countries.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

IRELAND has been censured by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for using the United Nations Law of the Sea’s dispute settlement procedure to tackle Britain’s pollution of the Irish Sea via the Sellafield plant. The court ruled that in European Union (EU) territorial waters, it had exclusive jurisdiction, and Dublin should have asked it to censure Britain, not the UN.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE IRISH government is being taken to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over refusing public compensation to blameless but uninsured road accident victims whose crash was caused by the driver of another vehicle without insurance. The European Commission claims Ireland is breaking the European Union’s (EU) second motor insurance directive.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) may have helped Italian courts control any insolvency proceedings of a Parmalat subsidiary in Ireland, Eurofood. Control of winding-up this financing company for the Parmalat group has been claimed by both Italian and Irish courts and the ECJ was asked about how European law affects the choice of jurisdiction over such matters.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) may have helped Italian courts control any insolvency proceedings of a Parmalat subsidiary in Ireland, Eurofood. Control of winding-up this financing company for the Parmalat group has been claimed by both Italian and Irish courts and the ECJ was asked about how European law affects the choice of jurisdiction over such matters.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed reforms to the scientific basis and transparency of decisions on approving or banning genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in foodstuffs. This follows concerns from member states that too many GM products are being approved for sale in the European Union (EU).…

BY LUCY JONES, in Dallas, Texas

THERE is another side to the loss of life and devastation wreaked in the USA by hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Dennis last year, a market reaction that has brought unsought benefits to the US paint and coatings industry.…

BY LUCY JONES, in Dallas, Texas

THERE is another side to the loss of life and devastation wreaked in the USA by hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Dennis last year, a market reaction that has brought unsought benefits to the US paint and coatings industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CADBURY Schweppes may scupper an attempt by Britain’s Inland Revenue to levy GBPounds 8.6 million taxes from an Ireland-based subsidiary. It wanted to charge Cadbury Schweppes Treasury International (CSTI), alleging it was a shell for dodging higher British tax rates.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared the subsidising by GBPounds 10.4 million from the British and Irish governments of Derry City Council-funded capital development projects at the City of Derry airport. These are a runway safety scheme, allowing more aircraft types to land, and helping the council finance previous improvements’ cost overruns.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

CADBURY Schweppes may scupper an attempt by Britain’s Inland Revenue to levy GBPounds 8.6 million taxes from an Ireland-based subsidiary. It wanted to charge Cadbury Schweppes Treasury International (CSTI), alleging it was a shell company for dodging higher British tax rates.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has ruled efforts to squeeze Ireland-based creditors from Bank of America-inspired insolvency proceedings of a Dublin-based subsidiary of Italian food giant Parmalat could be blocked by Irish courts. The ECJ confirmed the theoretical role of Italian liquidators, but in reality an Irish liquidator will probably handle the case.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that efforts to squeeze Ireland-based creditors from Bank of America-inspired insolvency proceedings of a Dublin-based subsidiary of Italian food giant Parmalat could be blocked by the Irish courts. Although the ECJ ruling in principle also confirms the theoretical rights of Italian liquidators to have a role – noting that "the right of creditors or their representatives to participate" in insolvency proceedings "is of particular importance" – the effect in this case will be to guarantee the rights of a publicly appointed liquidator in Ireland.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A BID by the Spanish government to secure more North Sea and Baltic Sea access rights for its fishermen has been thrown out by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). After Spain joined the European Union in 1986, it was given some special transitional access to these waters (from 1996), but these expired in 2002, leaving Spanish vessels – claimed Madrid – with unfairly limited quotas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) political leaders have agreed medium-term (2007-13) budgets for crucial spending projects for the energy sector: Trans European Networks (TENs) and the EU seventh framework programme (FP7) for research. On TENs, the European Parliament, Commission, and EU Council of Ministers have agreed a Euro 7.2 billion budget, Euro 500 million above previous drafts, although this will have to be split with TENs transport projects.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IRELAND has been censured by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failing to comply with a year 2000 European Union (EU) directive imposing limits on working time in the civil aviation sector. This enshrined in law an agreement struck by the Association of European Airlines (AEA), the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF), the European Cockpit Association (ECA), the European Regions Airline Association (ERA) and the International Air Carrier Association (IACA).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has unveiled imminent plans to abolish the European Union (EU) system of pre-financing export refunds for food, widely used in the past to manipulate EU beef sales. Because of this, EU agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer-Boel has told the EU Council of Ministers that the system would be replaced with direct beef export controls.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has declared illegal a refusal by the European Commission to pay Euro 154,892 interest on the refunded portion of a Euro 8.8 million fine earlier levied against Ireland’s Irish Sugar, now owned by the Greencore Group plc.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IRISH natural gas company Finavera Ltd claims a technical evaluation of its Lough Allen natural gas field, in the northwest Irish Republic and Northern Ireland has revealed 9.4 trillion cubic feet gas reserves.

ENDS…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has declared illegal a refusal by the European Commission to pay Euro 154,892 interest on a refunded fine levied against Irish Sugar, now owned by Ireland’s Greencore.

ENDS…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SPANISH government has failed at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to free itself from some fish stocks conservation rules administered by the European Commission, notably restricting its fishing fleet’s catches in the Irish Box. Spain alleged at the court that these rules amounted to national discrimination, illegal under EU treaties.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has authorised the Irish Industrial Development Agency (IDA) to grant Euro 48.25 million to help Centocor Inc. build a biopharmaceutical production plant on a greenfield site at Ringaskiddy, County Cork, Ireland. Brussels approved this state aid saying it would not distort competition within the European Union (EU).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has demonstrated that there are limits to the authority coastal states may have over its fishing fleets in international access deals by refusing to renew a protocol with Angola. Indeed, the European Commission has asked EU ministers to denounce a 1989 agreement underpinning a series of access deals, after refusing to accept a new Angolan law on ‘biological aquatic resources’.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the payment of three national subsidy schemes for the European Union (EU) food sector, using its powers to block or approve state aid schemes to ensure a level EU commercial playing field. It has allowed the payment of GBPounds 2.25 million by the UK government on the Meat Generic Advertising Scheme for Wales, from April 2006 to March 2007.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) advocate general has said European Union (EU) victims whose property is damaged by a foreign EU nuclear power operator should launch legal actions in their domestic courts. Miguel Poiares Maduro has advised the ECJ to rule that the 1968 Brussels Convention on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters, effectively allows aggrieved property owners to choose between their home courts and those of a nuclear plant: "Both courts should….claim…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has declared illegal a refusal by the European Commission to pay Euro 154,892 interest on a refunded fine levied against Irish Sugar, now owned by Greencore.

ENDS…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
IRELAND’S Celtic Tiger economy may have lost a little of its bounce recently, with double-digit annual growth figures no longer predicted. However, the beast is still in fine fettle, as a recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) observer report notes: “The economy has bounced back.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

IRELAND’S Celtic Tiger economy may have lost a little of its bounce recently, with double-digit annual growth figures no longer predicted. However, the beast is still in fine fettle, as a recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) observer report notes: “The economy has bounced back.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH European Commissioner tasked with ridding the European Union (EU) of national regulations that hinder trade, has called for EU member states to have a free hand, at least as regards taxation. Declaring keen support for tax competition between the 25 EU countries, the former Fianna Fail finance minister Charlie McCreevy told a KPMG meeting in Naas, Ireland: “There are some who argue that lower taxation in one member state than in another doesn’t give a level playing field.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is holding a legislative bonfire, releasing details of proposed fishing measures it will abandon under a drive by its current regime to simplify European Union (EU) laws and lessen their impact on industry. Most of the proposals earmarked for the shredder have encountered political opposition from the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, making it difficult for the Commission to get them passed into law.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
IT is probably true, as some anti-tobacco campaigners claim, that if the European Union (EU) had had the statutory authority to act in the public health area in recent years, then the legal crackdown on smokers would have been far tougher than it has been.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN IRISH company’s plan to help 1,600 meat and dairy producers in Latin America adopt technology capturing and disposing of methane, creating saleable carbon credits, has been supported by a US$10 million International Finance Corporation loan. AgCert International plc wants to spend US$150 million on rolling out these systems.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN IRISH company’s plan to help 1,600 meat and dairy producers in Latin America adopt technology capturing and disposing of methane has been supported by a US$10 million loan from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC). AgCert International plc actually wants to spend US$150 million on rolling out these systems over the next three years, especially in Brazil and Mexico.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice’s (ECJ) Court of First Instance has thrown out a bid by Italy’s Canal SpA to block the European Union (EU)-wide registration by the New York-based Canal Jean Co Inc of its trademark ‘Canal Jean Co’.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government is facing yet more rounds of legal action from the European Commission over its failure to abide by European Union (EU) environmental legislation. In one instance, Ireland has been given a final warning of a likely request it be heavily fined by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for ignoring an earlier ECJ order to better protect the ozone layer.…

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 MONICA DOBIE
A RECENT Irish study has found that whilst nurses responded to a hospital campaign to increase hand-washing, almost half of affected doctors still failed to take this basic cleanliness precaution. According to the Oxford-based Journal of Advanced Nursing, only 51% of Ireland hospital staff surveyed followed hand-washing guidelines before a hygiene campaign was launched.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) internal market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy has indicated a willingness to compromise with opponents of a proposed EU directive that would force listed companies to appoint in-house audit committee. Speaking to a conference on European corporate governance, in Luxembourg City, McCreevy recognised the critics, whom he said had “woken up somewhat late in the day”.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government is facing yet another round of legal action from the European Commission over its failure to abide by European Union (EU) environmental legislation affecting fish farming. The Commission has now decided to take Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to stage sufficiently rigorous environmental impact assessments on fish farms.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government has been censured again by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over lax pollution controls of its lakes, rivers and sea inlets, many exploited by fish farms. The ECJ said Ireland had failed to comply with a 1976 European Union directive on ‘discharging dangerous substances into the aquatic environment’, by not controlling enough pollutants or protecting enough lakes.…

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
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has called on the European Commission to frame an action plan on simplifying red tape for the fishing industry, “reducing their bureaucratic workload and the restrictions that bear down on fishermen”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government is being taken to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over its failure to order environmental impact assessments of pig rearing units before they are set up. The result of this, said the European Commission, which has launched the action is that “the public and the environment may suffer nuisance and harm”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has released plans to lend Denmark’s DONG up to Pounds 60 million to help fund the construction of a 90MW offshore wind farm in the Irish Sea, off Barrow-in-Furness. The planned power station should produce 305GWh annually, equalling the power consumption of more than 65,000 households.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has censured the Irish government for committing what it calls “general and persistent breaches of the (European Union) waste directive”. Judges said Dublin’s failure to introduce an effective permit system for waste handlers had sparked uncontrolled dumping, to which it sometimes turned a blind eye.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NORWAY has launched the first stage of disputes proceedings at the WTO, where it is protesting against the imposition of temporary safeguard tariff quotas, minimum import prices and demanding of securities by the EU to protect the Scottish and Irish salmon industries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IRISH Sugar owner Greencore’s legal bid to force the European Commission to pay Euro 154,892 interest on a refunded fine has an additional lease of life, with the European Court of Justice rejecting a claim by the European Commission of inadmissibility.…

BY LUCY JONES, in Dallas, Texas

THERE is another side to the loss of life and devastation wreaked in the USA by hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Dennis last year, a market reaction that has brought unsought benefits to the US paint and coatings industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SECURING agreement on important European Union (EU) legislation creating a continent-wide tolling system for all lorries exceeding 3.5 tonnes will be the top transport priority of the EU’s new Luxembourg presidency. The grand duchy’s transport minister Lucien Lux has already discussed the railway aspects of the proposed widened Eurovignette regime with the EU railway federation the CER and has publicly promised to push for agreement.…

IRELAND’S Celtic Tiger economy may have lost a little of its bounce recently, with double-digit annual growth figures no longer predicted. However, the beast is still in fine fettle, as a recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) observer report notes: "The economy has bounced back.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH, French and Spanish governments have come under increased political pressure to improve their conservation of fishing stocks and monitoring of illicit catches through rulings from the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

Judges backed claims from the European Commission that Spain had failed to stage inspections of fishing vessels as mandated by European Union (EU) legislation, had not prevented fishing after quotas had been exhausted, and not taken “penal or administrative measures against anyone for breaking these limits”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government has come under increased political pressure to improve its conservation of fishing stocks and monitoring of illicit catches through a ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

Judges backed claims from the European Commission that Dublin had been breaking European Union (EU) laws by:

*Failing to agree detailed guidelines on exploiting its allocated fishing quotas;

*Not adequately monitoring fishing boats, inspecting landings and recording catches;

*Allowing fishing boats to continue working when their quotas are exhausted; and

*Not launching administrative or criminal proceedings against vessel masters breaking fishing regulations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) may have created a new opportunity to market health insurance to European Union (EU) immigrants, underlining the value of commercial policies in preventing deportation. Judges ruled that a neither children possessing citizenship of one EU country, or their parents, can be forced from a different EU state, if the child has “sickness insurance covering all risks in the host country” as well as resources ensuring they do not “burden the (local) social assistance scheme”.…

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
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 ALAN OSBORN
THE NEW president of the European Commission, the former Portuguese prime minister Jose Manuel Barroso, has made clear that for the next five years at least there will be a reform-minded team at work in Brussels driven by a powerful desire to eliminate accounting fraud, inefficiency and the protection of special interests.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government is being threatened with the levying of large daily recurring fines from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) if it continues to ignore a ruling telling it to cease overgrazing by sheep in protected bog areas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH the summer holiday season in full swing, hold those calls to Stockholm: the Swedes have more time off than other Europeans, Germany’s IW economic institute has claimed. In an international survey of holidays taken by workers in 2003 in 14 western European countries, the Cologne-based think tank said Sweden was closely followed by the Netherlands (31 days) and Denmark (30 days).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government is being formally threatened with legal action at the European Court of Justice over its refusal to scrap an excise stamp system, where tobacco traders pay duty on their products by ‘buying’ stamps from tax authorities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government is being formally threatened with legal action at the European Court of Justice over refusing to scrap its excise stamp system, where tobacco manufacturers pay duty by ‘buying’ stamps from tax authorities. The European Commission says this illegally prevents traders moving Irish-stamped tobacco around the European Union, where different excise rates may apply.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Green Party has kicked off its June 10 European election campaign, which will focus on food safety and preventing repeats of the BSE and salmonella scares that have damaged the European Union (EU) meat industry in recent years.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SEEN in the context of the past decade, the entry of 10 new member states to the European Union (EU) which took place on May 1 has proved nothing like the disaster for the nuclear industry that was once feared.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SCOTTISH MEP has raised concerns at the European Parliament about reports of the Dundrennan firing range, in Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland, being used by the British military to test depleted uranium weapons. Green MEP Neil MacCormick alleged the firing may have dumped 29 tonnes of depleted uranium off south-west Scotland, a concern to both British and Irish citizens, and, he claimed, a likely breach of the UN Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution.…

BY EDWARD PETERS
DEPENDING on who you ask, Taiwan is either a renegade province or to all intents and purposes an independent nation, albeit one that currently lacks full international recognition. To suggest that it could be a fully functioning country in its own right to anyone in Beijing – the capital of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – is tantamount to treason.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THEY’RE not to everybody’s taste, we quite agree, but there’s no doubt that flavoured cigars have a very devoted band of followers and can no longer be dismissed as a passing fancy. Indeed after speaking to a number of the big players it is easy to gain the impression that the flavoured, (or aromatic), segment has (along perhaps with filters) been the only one to buck the cigar sector’s trend of falling or stagnant sales in recent years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has sent Ireland a legal final warning threatening possible legal action over Dublin’s alleged failure to protect too few maritime zones containing commercial shellfish fisheries. Brussels says that the Irish government has broken the EU shellfish water directive by designating only 14 shellfish zones for special protection.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
HOSPITAL consultants began industrial action across the Irish Republic yesterday as part of an escalating protest against the imposition of a new state scheme for insuring medical malpractice. Senior doctors have withdrawn all administrative duties and will stop all other duties, except emergency work, if the dispute over the so-called ‘enterprise liability’ cover is not resolved within three weeks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EFFECTIVE incorporation of the 10 eastern and southern European countries joining the European Union (EU) next May in Brussels’ Common Agricultural Policy is a key priority of the Irish government’s new EU presidency. Other priorities include reforming the common market organisation for olive oil and sugar, plus Commission farm animal welfare proposals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has called for legal penalties to be erected banning the sale, trade and consumption of bushmeat, which it says is causing a “worrying depletion of wildlife in (tropical) forests.” Approving a report by Irish socialist MEP Proinsias De Rossa, MEPs said a European Union (EU) “strategic action plan” should be created to fight to problem, most common in the Congo basin, where between 1 and 5 million tonnes of bushmeat is produced.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government is to use its presidency of the European Union (EU) over the next six months to push for the consolidation of the EU internal market in energy, especially the cross-border trade in gas, where its position as an island at the edge of the continent leaves it vulnerable to supply cuts in crises.…

KEITH NUTHALL
IRELAND has been censured by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failing to adopt clean-up programmes for all sea water areas designated for shellfish harvesting waters, breaking a 1979 European Union (EU) directive. The Irish government has also been told to pay the costs of the legal action, brought by the European Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BEST place to break the law is where the closest policeman is 100’s of miles away. And where might that criminal utopia be? Siberia, the Sahara, the Amazon? No, it’s the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, on the developed world’s doorstep, where fishing crime is becoming a real problem.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government is backing an Austrian call for the ongoing European Union (EU) intergovernmental conference (IGC) – that is writing the EU’s first constitution – to convene a separate conference to review the Euratom nuclear energy treaty.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government has announced that it is backing an Austrian call for the ongoing European Union (EU) intergovernmental conference (IGC) – that is writing the EU’s first constitution – to convene a separate conference to review the Euratom nuclear energy treaty.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government has announced that it is backing an Austrian call for the ongoing European Union (EU) intergovernmental conference (IGC) – that is writing the EU’s first constitution – to convene a separate conference to review the Euratom nuclear energy treaty.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been strongly criticised by the European Ombudsman over its unquestioning acceptance of an altered report allocating blame for attacks on fishing gear in Ireland. The Ombudsman has found the Commission guilty of “maladministration” in accepting significant revisions to the report without querying the reasons or even making an inquiry into the changes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
RETAILERS cannot be forced to stock a drinks or food brand in freezers or fridges, even when they are lent for free by a manufacturer, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled. It found against Unilever, (acting for Van den Bergh Foods, previously HB foods), which is arguing for the legality of “exclusivity” contracts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A KEY European Parliament (EP) committee has called for a significant boost in European Investment Fund spending on actions that suppress the growing illegal trade in bushmeat, which is threatening wild species in Africa, Asia and Latin America.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
RETAILERS cannot be forced to stock a food or drink brand in freezers or fridges, even when they are lent for free by a food manufacturer, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled. It found against Unilever, (acting for Van den Bergh Foods, previously HB foods), which is arguing for the legality of “exclusivity” contracts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE CURRENT European Commission leadership, under Italy’s Romano Prodi, was supposed to be the clean-hands team, ridding the institution of the corruption and mismanagement that thrived under his predecessor Jacques Santer. The ongoing Eurostat scandal is undermining that reputation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH are the European Union’s keenest purchasers of tobacco and alcohol, considering annual household spending, according to European Union statistical agency Eurostat. Ireland’s consumers devoted six per cent of their spending on tobacco and alcohol in 2001 and 2000 – the latest available comparative statistics.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH are the European Union’s keenest purchasers of alcohol and tobacco, considering annual household spending, according to European Union statistical agency Eurostat. Ireland’s consumers devoted six per cent of their spending on alcohol and tobacco in 2001 and 2000 – the latest available comparative statistics.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
WE know that British farmers are generally lining up behind EU farm commissioner Franz Fischler’s bid to reform the Common Agriculture Policy but how do they see things the other side of the Irish Sea? Neither the government nor farmers in Ireland have so far expressed much enthusiasm about the plan to switch from production-linked to flat payments – the so-called de-coupling process.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THERE has been a lot of talk about water in international meetings and organisations this year. Report after report has spelt out that we are all using too much water and if reforms do not make systems more sustainable, then a thirsty future beckons.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
IN terms of compliance with the anti-money laundering rules and regulations laid down by supra-national bodies like the European Commission and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Ireland today is right up there at the top of the class.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
REDUCTIONS in support to Europe’s dairy production industry should be handled efficiently in Ireland via the development of “fresh and value-added dairy products” EU agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler told an Irish farming conference in Dublin. Speaking on reductions to Common Agricultural Organisation dairy subsidies, he said Ireland already was “the lowest cost milk producer in Europe.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AUSTRIA is being taken to the European Court of Justice by the European Commission over its failure to properly implement the EU’s integrated pollution prevention and control directive and Ireland is being threatened with such legal action for the same reason.…

BY PHILIP FINE

US biotechnologists have discovered a gene that protects potatoes against late blight, the disease that caused the Irish potato famine and a member of the family of pathogens to which all varieties of commercial potato are still susceptible.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
REDUCTIONS in support to Europe’s sometimes bloated dairy production industry should be handled efficiently in Ireland. EU agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler told an Irish farmers conference that Ireland already was “the lowest cost milk producer in Europe,” adding he was “confident (it) can diversify into fresh and value-added dairy products.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IRELAND is being threatened with legal action at the European Court of Justice by the European Commission over its failure to properly implement the EU’s integrated pollution prevention and control directive. Brussels says there is no guarantee Irish industries and farms will follow the legislation’s environmental rules.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government’s alleged failure to adequately implement a directive giving lawyers the right to easily register and work in Ireland has led the European Commission to threaten the levying of potentially enormous daily recurring fines.

Brussels has sent Dublin a legal final warning letter that tells it to quickly comply with a European Court of Justice ruling of last December that it should transpose directive 98/5/EC on the establishment of lawyers onto its statute book.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is threatening Ireland with legal action at the European Court of Justice over its alleged failure to abide by the EU environmental impact assessment directive regarding fish farms. Brussels says that Irish legislation does not allow assessments to take sufficient account of environmentally sensitive sites or of the cumulative effects of smaller individual projects.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
REDUCTIONS in support to Europe’s sometimes bloated dairy production industry should be handled efficiently in Ireland. EU agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler told an Irish farmers conference that Ireland already was “the lowest cost milk producer in Europe,” adding he was “confident (it) can diversify into fresh and value-added dairy products.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITISH architects are among the most lightly regulated in the European Union (EU), with their Danish, Irish, Dutch and Swedish colleagues enjoying a similarly light regulatory burden, according to a European Commission-funded survey, promoting liberalisation in Europe’s professions.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank is planning to help Irish and Italian airports comply with new European baggage inspection regulations. It plans to lend up to Euro 150 million to Italian civil aviation authority ENAC to install security inspection equipment and modify baggage-handling systems at 37 Italian airports.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) Competition Commissioner Mario Monti is to ask his colleagues on the European Commission to ban two special tax regimes – in Netherlands and Belgium – while allowing a threatened taxation system in Ireland to continue.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has ordered Spain and Italy to cease banning the marketing of British, Danish and Irish chocolate containing vegetable fat as ‘chocolate,’ ruling that by insisting they are sold as ‘chocolate substitutes’ the two countries are illegally restricting EU trade.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
IRELAND will ban smoking in all public places including pubs and restaurants from January 2004 onwards. The announcement came as Ireland’s Office of Tobacco Control released a study which found that people who work in smoky environments are up to 30 per cent more likely to develop heart disease and cancer because of passive smoking.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
THE NUMBER of recorded BSE cases in Ireland reached a record high in 2002 with 333 cases compared to 246 in 2001. However, the Irish Department of Agriculture claimed the underlying trend was more positive, with the number recorded since the start of August 2002 down 32 per cent on the corresponding 2001 period.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EU Council of Ministers has approved sharply reduced total allowable catch (TAC) quotas for cod, haddock and whiting (which are caught together) for the North Sea, the Irish Sea, west of Scotland and the Skagerrak waters closer to Norway.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
THE IRISH government has been calculating the cost of introducing a carbon tax to fall in line with the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and associated EU legislation. Its environment minister Martin Cullen said the price of complying with a target of capping greenhouse gas emissions from Ireland at 13 per cent of 1990 levels could be as much as Euro 260 million annually over a five-year period.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE, in Brisbane, EDWARD PETERS, in Hong Kong, RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg, MARK ROWE, in London, SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo and MONICA DOBIE, in Montreal.
BRITAIN’S National Health Service (NHS) is exposed to an estimated annual fraud loss of pounds 2 billion each year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A COMMERCIAL ferry is being fitted with optical sensors by two universities to conduct an environmental survey of the surface of the Irish Sea, which will provide comprehensive data to improve the management of its ecosystems.

The University of Wales’ School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor, and the National University of Ireland are using Irish Ferries’ Ulysses for the experiment.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has rejected a claim by a bereaved mother that European law entitled her compensation for the death of her son in a road accident, where he was a passenger sitting in an unseated rear area of a Citroën C 15 D diesel van.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A COMMERCIAL ferry is being fitted with optical sensors by two universities to conduct an environmental survey of the surface of the Irish Sea, which will provide comprehensive data to improve the management of its ecosystems.

The University of Wales’ School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor, and the National University of Ireland are using Irish Ferries’ Ulysses for the experiment.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A COMMERCIAL ferry is being fitted with optical sensors by two universities to conduct an environmental survey of the surface of the Irish Sea, which will provide comprehensive data to improve the management of its ecosystems.

The University of Wales’ School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor, and the National University of Ireland are using Irish Ferries’ Ulysses for the experiment.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
THIS YEAR will see the highest ever number of confirmed BSE cases in Irish cattle, according to official government figures. The country’s Department of Agriculture admits that the number of cases detected so far this year has reached 246, the same figure for all of 2001, itself a record year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE DISCOVERY this summer of the hormone MPA in treacle or glucose syrup used for pig feed in the Netherlands, originated in Ireland and were sold on via Belgium because of poor implementation of EU pharmaceutical waste laws and the carelessness of feed producers, the European Commission has claimed.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
TWO-THIRDS of the population of the Republic of Ireland are in favour of doubling the price of cigarettes, according to a new survey, which says the view is shared by 50 per cent of Irish smokers. The survey was carried out on behalf of the Irish Office of Tobacco Control, which was interviewing a “nationally representative sample of 1,500 people.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND PHILIP FINE

IN the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy, the shocking images of two planes slamming into two of the most famous buildings in the world fuelled a strong desire tighten up security systems around the world, especially in civil aviation.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
MORE than 2,000 kilograms of illegally imported food products have been seized at Dublin airport each month this year. The figure has prompted the Irish government to tighten restrictions, including a ban on personal imports of animal-based products from outside the EU and a limit of 10 kg per person on meat and milk-based products from within Europe.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved a scheme for the development of the natural gas infrastructure in Northern Ireland that will mean supplies from the Republic of Ireland being pumped into the north for the first time. The Commission said that eventually the infrastructure may be extended to north-westerly regions of Ireland, such as Donegal, which are not currently served by natural gas and it therefore “takes a big step towards the development of an all-island natural gas infrastructure.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
AN INTERNATIONAL team of scientists based at Galway, in Ireland, has made a surprising discovery that could have significant consequences for future climate change.

The EU-sponsored Parforce research project, led by the National University of Ireland, has found that iodine vapours released by marine algae can help thicken haze and cloud layers, blocking sunlight and thereby partially offsetting global warming from greenhouse gases.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
RESEARCHERS in Ireland have developed a system that allows farmers to remotely monitor the temperature of cattle using a mobile phone. The Grange Research Centre, part of the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority (Teagasc), have recently completed tests using an electronic bolus (a kind of pill) placed in the cow’s rumen, (one of its stomachs).…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
SMALL shops in Ireland are losing Euros 450 (Pounds 300) worth of shopping baskets every month on average, following the introduction of a Euro 15 cent (10p) environmental levy on plastic carrier bags, according to an Irish small retailers group.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
THE EUROPEAN Union is reassessing its so-far negative position on individual sheep tagging, says the Irish Farmers’ Association. Brussels has maintained that individual tagging is not practical, but association sheep committee chairman, Laurence Fallon claims that the Commission is having a “major reassessment” of its position.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
FIGURES from the Wine Development Board of Ireland show that the country’s wine market has grown by 15 per cent in the first four months of 2002, further closing the gap on beer. Women are apparently driving growth, consuming 57 per cent of wine sold in Ireland.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
THE IRISH GOVERNMENT is about to launch a pig-tracing system to help prevent the spread of Aujeszky’s disease.

All pigs travelling to abattoirs will be identified with a slap mark and will be tagged during all other movements, under the National Pig Identification and Tracing System (NPITS).…

BY MONICA DOBIE, in Montreal
THE FIRST steps have been taken towards making cigarettes – a cornerstone of small shop revenue – an under-the-counter product worldwide. Laws have already been passed in Canada and Ireland banning the public display of tobacco products, dismaying shopkeepers’ representatives.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE IRISH parliament, the Dail, has recently passed legislation giving ministers to the power to ban the advertising or display of tobacco products in shops. Ireland is the first state within the EU to agree such a regulation, a move which may encourage similar policies in other Member States.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has thrown out an allegation that Irish air authority Aer Rianta abused a dominant position in Ireland’s aviation sector when Fingal County Council rejected an application for the construction of a second terminal at Dublin airport in 1997.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union’s anti-fraud unit OLAF has reacted angrily to the leaking to German news magazine Stern of a confidential dossier of new EU corruption allegations compiled last year by Brussels whistle-blower Paul van Buitenen. Since he handed his report in August to OLAF and the Commission’s administration directorate, officials have been “analysing” its contents and discussing how to follow it up.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IRELAND’S dominant power supplier ESB and its Norwegian partner Statoil have agreed to sell 600MW of electricity on the open market, as the price of securing competition approval for their joint venture, setting up the Synergen gas-fuelled electricity plant in Dublin.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Environment Agency has claimed that energy use is still rising in the European Union, mainly because of increasing transport consumption and has alleged that the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions could return to their 1990 levels by the year 2010 unless Brussels and Member States take firm action; this would include promoting renewable energy, said the EEA.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A SPECIALITY Sri Lankan brewer has dug into the colonial heritage of his south Asian island by launching a heavily hopped dark beer that he is marketing as 3C Irish Dark. The CEO of the Three Coins Beer Company Lasath Suriyapperuma says that the brew is smooth on the palate and has a reddish tinge.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BRITISH government is being threatened with legal action at the European Court of Justice over its alleged failure to have implemented two air pollution directives.

It has been sent legal warning letters by the European Commission for failing to notify its officials about national regulations complying with to a general directive for assessing and managing air quality, something it should have done by last July.…

Keith Nuthall
THE REPUBLIC of Ireland has been sent a final legal warning note alleging that its government has failed to implement a EU scheme for monitoring CO2 emissions from new passenger cars. Under the scheme, Member States are supposed to send data to the European Commission annually, with the deadline for producing the first information report being July 1, 2001.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is taking Ireland to the European Court of Justice because of its alleged failure to adopt anti-pollution programmes designed to prevent pollution in marine areas yielding shellfish. Brussels claims that under the shellfish directive, programmes should prevent pollution in the first place, while Irish legislation only covers clean-ups after problems have arisen.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been given authority to negotiate a comprehensive “Governing International Fisheries Agreement” with the USA. EU ministers said Brussels officials should

Meanwhile, the EU Council of Ministers has agreed a regulation aiming at boosting cod stocks in the Irish Sea this year, protecting adult cod during the spawning season, notably enforcing an area closure from February.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been given authority by European Union Council of Ministers (finance) to negotiate a comprehensive “Governing International Fisheries Agreement” with the USA. A Brussels official in the Commission’s directorate general for fisheries told Fishing News International that a future deal could lead to EU fishing crews being given access to fish US waters and for European factory ships to be allowed to buy stocks from American fishermen at sea.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
SHAREHOLDERS of Irish packaging giant Jefferson Smurfit have finally given the go-ahead to a buyout by US private equity house Madison Dearborn Partners, in a GBPounds 2.37 billion deal. The takeover, the largest in Irish corporate history, is Madison Dearborn’s fifth and biggest investment in the paper and packaging industry.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
MORE people are drinking wine in the Irish Republic according to the latest figures from the Wine Development Board of Ireland.

The Board reported growth in the country’s wine market the first four months of 2002, with women driving up sales, consuming 57 per cent of all wine sold in Ireland.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN has been ordered by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to “devise, as appropriate, measures to prevent pollution of the marine environment” maybe resulting from the operational launch of a new MOX (mixed oxide fuel) plant, in Sellafield, next summer.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FISHING catch quotas in European Union territorial waters are to be slashed again to reduce pressure on stocks, which Brussels says “are in a parlous state.” The European Commission proposed a reduction of the total allowable catch of haddock in the Irish Sea by 52%, sole in the North Sea by 25% and langoustines in the Bay of Biscay by between 45 and 50%.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE RELIANCE of part of the Irish power sector on the locally sourced fuel of peat is to continue into the next two decades, after a state aid scheme allowing the Irish government to fund its use was agreed by the European Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND ALAN OSBORN
WATER pricing reform is on its way in the European Union. The water framework directive passed last year imposes a commitment on Member States by the year 2010 to ensure that their pricing policies “provide adequate incentives for users to use water resources efficiently.”…

KEITH NUTHALL
LEGAL pressure is being brought to bear on the Irish government to force it to prepare anti-pollution programmes for shellfish waters, under the EU Shellfish Water Directive. The European Commission is threatening Dublin with possible legal action at the European Court of Justice, if it does not by the end of this month, (September), advise it of a plan to implement the directive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has rejected a bid by Irish Sugar to overturn a fine ordered by the European Commission, reduced on appeal to Euro 7.8 million, because of alleged anti-competitive practices committed by it and its distributor, Sugar Distributors Limited.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government could be ordered to be massive daily recurring fines, because of its failure to implement EU directive 1999/47/EC on transport of dangerous goods by road, which sets safety rules for this kind of haulage work.

Ireland has already been censured by the European Court of Justice for not writing its contents into national Irish legislation and now the European Commission has asked the European Court of Justice to consider using exceptional powers to levy fines.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IRELAND is being threatened with legal action by the European Commission over its alleged failure to extend the EU product liability directive to primary agricultural foodstuffs, such as meat and game. Ireland had until last December to changes its law, to allow Irish food manufacturers, processors and caterers to pass on liability for defective products to farmers, where the blame is clear.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has claimed that agreement of proposals to create a European Public Prosecutor to coordinate investigations and prosecutions regarding EU fraud, is essential. Without this, it said in a wide-ranging report on EU fraud, “the fight against fraud will remain a half measure and is doomed to failure.”…