Search Results for: Italy

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A GLITZY mobile anti-smoking campaign has been launched by the European Commission, using a campaign truck to stage events such as karaoke, quizzes, competitions and even auditions for appearances on MTV as a backdrop to anti-cigarette propaganda. The EU-roadshow will rumble into a series of youth events this summer, such as the Edinburgh Funfest in August and the FIFA under-17’s world cup in Finland, also in August, having graced April’s Paganello Frisbee Party/World Beach Ultimate Cup in Rimini, Italy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
The European Parliament’s environment committee has voted to recommend the continued withholding of some 2.18 million euros (about pounds 1.4 million) from the budget of the new European Food Safety Agency in spite of a complaint by the EFSA executive director that the agency’s work is being severely restricted by lack of funds.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s anti-fraud office OLAF has been called in to investigate financial corruption at the EU’s Committee of the Regions, the Brussels body representing local governments across Europe.

Its investigators are checking allegations made by Dutch socialist MEP Michiel van Hulten to the European Parliament that the record of financial probity at the CoR “can only be described as alarming.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Commission vice president Neil Kinnock can breath a sigh of relief after yesterday’s (Monday24) vote by the European Parliament’s budget control committee to recommend the discharge of the European Union’s year 2001 accounts. The decision brings to an end concerns that the committee would withhold consent because of revelations about mismanagement that Kinnock is alleged to have ignored, notably those made by whistle-blower and former chief accountant Marta Andreason, now suspended from her job.…

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

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

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A PHD in rocket science is not required to understand that corruption is a problem worldwide. But such a qualification – and more – would be required to devise an effective plan to fight this financial plague. The United Nations’ (UN) is drafting an international convention on corruption and asked a string of experts to write reports to illuminate some issues.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
STREAMLINING, multi-tasking and flexible posting of employees may be important weapons in the arsenal of a personnel team looking at getting the most efficiency out of their company, but managers had better make sure that their policies are legal, not only under national laws, but European law too.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FINNISH lawyers are the most lightly regulated in the European Union (EU), according to the surprising results of a European Commission-funded survey designed to promote the need for liberalisation in Europe’s liberal professions. Oddly, Greece, not known for its adherence to EU rules, has the union’s most heavily regulated legal profession; under a statistical indices developed by the Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Greece has a regulation burden of 9.5, while the laissez-faire Finns score a tiny 0.3.…

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