Search Results for: Slovakian

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) continues to struggle to clamp down on fraud within its revenue collection and spending programmes – making progress, but with major scams still emerging within the EU’s complex international decision-making systems.

In its latest annual ‘fight against fraud’ report (1) (2), covering 2019, the European Commission reports that 939 discovered irregularities were reported as fraudulent (8% of the number), involving EUR461.4 million in lost money (28% of that affected by irregularities).…

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

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

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

Claims of massive corruption in the sun-soaked Turks & Caicos Islands (TCI) are finally being aired in court. More than six years after investigators declared endemic malfeasance had brought the UK overseas territory to the brink of bankruptcy, its flamboyant former Premier Michael Misick is on trial accused of enriching himself by USD28 million.…

THE INCOMING European Union (EU) energy and climate change Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete and his boss, the future European Commission vice-president for the energy union Maroš Šefčovič have highlighted the need for smart grids and electricity interconnections as way to make Europe more self-reliant for energy.…

“WHAT I’m doing now really is a dream job for me.” CFO Juraj Drahovský, 36, from Košice, in eastern Slovakia, is relishing the challenge of helping the RWE Group, one of Europe’s largest energy companies, become a leading player in the Croatian market.…

BY MARK ROWE

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

By Katherine Dunn, International News Services

The travails of Roman Polanski in Switzerland this autumn have offered some lessons to the world’s wanted over extradition laws and how to deal with them. The Polish director has of course been living in France, with little fear of extradition, since 1978, when he fled the USA facing statutory rape charges. Only now of course this autumn was he arrested on an American warrant on a visit to Switzerland, while movie stars and directors crowed for his release.

Now, he is out on bail, secured with the help of French president Nicholas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, who intervened on Polanski’s behalf. 

As Polanski languishes in Alpine house arrest in a luxury Swiss chalet, it’s clear that extradition is still, at base, a political decision – and to avoid it, one key is not supporting international causes unpopular with powerful governments.…

BY LEAH GERMAIN

A BREAKTHROUGH energy project from EU research programme EUREKA is turning spent grain from beer production into renewable brewery-operating power. By harnessing its latest energy, German and Slovakian developers have created technology that can significantly reduce energy costs for brewers.…

By Leah Germain

Making beer is a hot smelly process, as any home brewer will testify. But what is to be done with the steaming left-over grains from a brew: turn it into energy and biogas of course – say German and Slovakian researchers.…

By Katherine Dunn

The travails of Roman Polanski in Switzerland this autumn have offered some lessons to the world’s wanted over extradition laws and how to deal with them. The Polish director has of course been living in France, with little fear of extradition, since 1978, when he fled the USA facing statutory rape charges.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has provisionally approved the installation of two new reactors at Slovakia’s Mochovce nuclear complex, saying the plans meet Euratom rules, but only if additional security and safety measures are implemented. Slovakia wants to commission by 2013 two type VVER 440/V213 Russian-design pressurised water reactors with a power capacity of 440 MWe each, costing Euro 1.6 billion.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ANOTHER eight traditionally made European food products have been added to the European Union’s (EU) protected geographical indication lists, preventing these foodstuffs being copied by food manufacturers based outside the regions where they are traditionally manufactured.

Three of these newly protected products are from Portugal: a special rice – ‘Arroz Carolino das Lezírias Ribatejanas’; a smoked sausage ‘Alheira de Vinhais’; and a ham ‘Presunto de Vinhais’, also known as ‘Presunto Bísaro de Vinhais’.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

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

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has approved spending of Euro 423 million from EU budgets on subsidising the 2007-13 costs of decommissioning units 1 and 2 of the Bohunice nuclear power plant, Slovakia. Its national government promised to close the units by 2006 and 2008 respectively as a condition of joining the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has approved spending of Euro 423 million from EU budgets on subsidising the 2007-13 costs of decommissioning units 1 and 2 of the Bohunice nuclear power plant, Slovakia. Its national government promised to close the units by 2006 and 2008 respectively as a condition of joining the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the Euro 5 million in state aid which the Slovakian government wants to grant the Ba?a Dolina mining company. The money will finance the social and technical costs of the closure of its coal mine covering the years 2004 to 2010.…

BY MARK ROWE
IT is difficult to separate the present-day Czech paint industry from the industrial heritage of the country. While the rest of the world made jokes about Skoda cars during the Communist era, the Czechs fumed as they saw a once great engineering industry reduced to a laughing stock.…

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

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PLANS to lend the Slovakian government Euro 30 million to help its water sector abide by European Union environmental standards have been drawn up by the European Investment Bank. The loan would fund the design, supervision and construction of priority investment schemes in water supply and wastewater collection and treatment.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ADDITIONAL European Union (EU) funding towards the decommissioning of Lithuania’s Ignalina nuclear power plant and Slovakia’s Bohunice plant has been pledged by an EU heads of government meeting in Brussels. This European Council promised that between 2004 and 2006, the EU would give the Lithuanian government Euro 70 million annually for the job.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL financial assistance is required in the eastern European shipbuilding and repair industries, if they are to withstand increased competition following the planned entry of their countries to the European Union, a report ordered by the European Commission has concluded.…

Keith Nuthall
LITHUANIA has informed the WTO how it will undertake its liberalisaton commitments under the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing. Because the Baltic republic has recently joined the world trade body, it is to implement the ATC’s first three stages at the same time.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
POLAND has announced that it intends to impose retaliatory restrictions on Slovakian food exports, in response to the safeguard duties imposed on imports of sugar by its east European neighbour, which Warsaw claims were erected in a way that breaks world trade laws.…