Search Results for: Spanish

Spain, which in the early Middle Ages was part of Islamic state called Al-Andalus – remembered as a golden age of Spanish tolerance and reason – has finally started to seriously play to win in the global halal market, through tourism and exports.…

Spain has been expanding its halal tourism and food sales, as it leverages its geographical proximity to Muslim countries in north Africa to provide travel and accommodation services.

In the CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index 2021, by CrescentRating & Mastercard, Spain climbed six positions to the 16th in the top non-Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) destinations (https://www.crescentrating.com/reports/global-muslim-travel-index-2021.html).…

Accountants are grappling with the implications of El Salvador formally adopting Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender on September 7, alongside USD, which has been the country’s legal tender since 2001, when the country withdrew its national Colón currency.

While USD will remain the most important currency in El Salvador, remaining the reference currency for accounting purposes, with greenback banknotes and coins still circulating, the Bitcoin Law that established the cryptocurrency in El Salvador (1) will be a challenge and opportunity for businesses.…

The food halal market for Portugal, a largely Christian country that was in the early Middle Ages part of the Muslim world, has been expanding, serving a growing local Muslim community and Muslim tourists keen to taste Portuguese food.

Between 711 and 1249, most of Portugal was under Muslim rule, which influenced its language and culture.…

The Covid-19 pandemic, as a global crisis, will have worldwide long and short-term effects, although – of course – some counties have been, and will be, hit much harder than others.

Indeed, some countries, with fragile economies and weaker social systems, have been brought close to collapse by the coronavirus.…

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).…

AS COVID-19 batters the world into its second year of the most destructive global pandemic since the Spanish Flu of 1919, its impact on AML/CFT is becoming clearer. FATF released an updated assessment in December (2020) (1) highlighting an increase in certain predicate offences caused by the disease itself and the increased online activity it has generated: phishing scams, business compromise fraud; internet child sex exploitation; corruption and fraud related to medical supply contracts; and property thefts of vacant homes and offices.…

The Spanish paint industry has been suffering from a major raw material supply shortage as it seeks to build back from a tough year in 2020, when sales were depressed by the Covid-19 pandemic. The national industry association, the ASEFAPI (Asociacion Española de Fabricantes de Pinturas y Tintas de Imprimir) has been releasing monthly bulletins on the raw material supply problem.…

The higher education system in Equatorial Guinea has been trying to move studies online because of Covid-19, but students still struggle to get computers and an affordable and fast Internet.  

It is hard to ignore the socio-economic backdrop of Equatorial Guinea, Africa’s only independent Spanish-speaking country, when assessing its higher education.…

THE COVID-19 pandemic’s boom in web usage has created opportunities for hackers and fraudsters to attack the unwary through electronic networks, however, on the plus side the scope for open-source intelligence (OSINT) inquiries online to reveal useful information about these criminals is growing.…

In five years, the Europol-hosted website ‘No More Ransom’ (NMR) (1) “prevented criminals from earning almost a billion euros through ransomware attacks,” the European Union (EU) police agency claims. Launching a new more user-friendly home for its ‘Crypto Sheriff’ app on Monday (July 26), Europol said that through 121 free tools, able to decrypt 151 ransomware families of this malware, the NMR repository has helped more than six million people recover locked files for free.…

The European anti-fraud office (OLAF) and European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) have struck a cooperation agreement to ensure their future work dovetails. They have agreed to exchange information; set guidelines on reporting and transferring potential cases; and deciding how to mutually support each other’s investigations.…

FOOD and drinks companies from across the European Union (EU) are now able to apply for research funding from the European Union’s (EU) Horizon Europe programme, which has a budget of around EUR95.5 billion. This spending will last until 2027, with companies generally needing to form international consortia focused on food, ingredients and packaging projects to secure funding.…

After completing the technical testing required, central America’s largest apparel factory is about to open in Honduras, producing sportswear for major brands such as Nike or Under Armour, an executive informed just-style.
La Arena, the Tegra Global-owned industrial park in San Pedro Sula, in the country’s north, will receive around 100 employees during the last week of August – its inauguration was delayed from January because of the Covid-19 pandemic.…

THE REPUTATION of the Caribbean’s major cigar production centres – Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua – has dominated global markets for years. But the entire region’s balmy and moist climate and rich soils are ideal for growing cigar wrapper and filler leaf.…

The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) has released a white paper saying that the accounting profession needs to learn from the challenges of Covid-19, investing in boosting communication skills. This will enable accountants to be more effective pro-active trusted partners with their clients, able to adapt to flexible and remote working even after the pandemic subsides.…

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

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

With China turning from capital inflow to outflow amid Chinese companies’ global expansion programs, Chinese financial institutions are facing closer anti-money laundering scrutiny, as they, too, expand globally. Indeed, China’s top five banks had 1, 270 overseas branches at the end of 2017 (according to FATF (the Financial Action Task Force).…

Morocco’s clothing manufacturing sector has pivoted to making medical supplies to cope with the flood of cancelled orders from hard hit European customers that marked the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic – developing textile backward linkages that could strengthen the industry for the future.…

THE COVID-19 crisis has severely depressed sales of personal care products within Latin America and it is unclear when the market will pick up.

In Argentina, for example, a coronavirus-induced lockdown has pushed the economy deeper into recession, slashing sales of most unessential beauty and personal care products.…

The leader of Spain’s food manufacturing industry has called on the country’s government to offer more help in supplying personal protective equipment (PPE) to companies who have stayed open during the Covid-19 pandemic to feed consumers staying at home. Mauricio García de Quevedo, director general de la Federación Española de Industrias de Alimentación y Bebidas (FIAB), told just-food that companies and workers in the food and beverage industry (nearly half a million people), “have reacted in an exemplary manner; they have never stopped supplying the public with the products they need, and maintain the variety, quality and safety that characterise our products.”…

The Nicaragua Textile and Clothing Industry Association (Anitec) has said that it hopes the country’s apparel export performance in 2020 will hold its ground, despite the anticipated softening in growth within the global economy this year and continuing political strife within the country.…

THE PERUVIAN government has created a textile and clothing industry roundtable group that has been charged with forging backward linkages delivering a comprehensive domestic supply chain from fibre to fabric, that will reduce costs for the country’s apparel sector. Currently imports significant volumes of yarn and cotton, increasing expenses for the clothing sector.…

Mexico’s digital textile printing industry is poised for growth as the country’s textile manufacturers bet on the technology to cut costs, meet orders faster and widen exports to Canada and the United States, efforts that have gained in importance this year as the global economy reels from the spread of the coronavirus.…

THE USE of paint and coatings by airlines is far more than the choice of an elegant trip for tail fins and fuselages. High tech coatings help aircraft operate efficiently and play an increasingly important role in helping planes fly smoothly, reducing drag and hence carbon emissions.…

A Spanish petrochemicals manufacturer is to by mid-2020 install new environment friendly production methods as a result of a EUR60 million European Investment Bank (EIB) loan, guaranteed by the European Commission. Spain’s CEPSA is installing the Detal system it developed with technology company UOP (Universal Oil Products) – whose parent is US-based Honeywell.…

IMPROVING on performance in AML/CFT is never a simple process, and that is especially a case with a country such as Bulgaria which has had a long-standing corruption problem, causing this east European country to be under special monitoring by the European Commission from the day it joined the European Union (EU) in 2007.…

THE PERUVIAN government has created a textile and clothing industry roundtable group that has been charged with forging backward linkages delivering a comprehensive domestic supply chain from fibre to fabric, that will reduce costs for the country’s apparel sector. Currently imports significant volumes of yarn and cotton, increasing expenses for the clothing sector.…

FOR rural landowners in England and Wales, the UK quitting the European Union (EU) on January 31 maybe the most important market driver in 2020. Uncertainty over Brexit has held up investment, sales and purchases, constitutional change is coming, landowners can plan with more clarity.…

Like other European cities, the sheer number of cheap nail salons that have exploded in Barcelona in recent years has reached saturation point. There is one, however, that has a waiting list. Dvine creates the ‘art nails’ that have become the statement accessory of Rosalia, the Catalan singing sensation who swept the 2020 Grammy Awards.…

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has called for a more robust approach to defend European honey production, as bee numbers continue to fall. In a motion supported almost unanimously, the EP’s environment committee has called for the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – which is now under review – to include active steps on reducing pesticide use, which MEPs blame for honey bee deaths.…

As national, regional and international legislation nudges the world away from its reliance on fossil fuels, corporations are increasingly sourcing renewable energy through the mechanism of green power purchase agreements (PPAs), whereby companies (and also utilities) act as an off-taker, making commitments for future renewable energy payments.…

The new so-called European Union (EU) sixth anti-money laundering directive that harmonises penalties for money laundering across the bloc is a key back up to the EU’s existing AML legislation. While dubbed the sixth anti-money laundering directive (6AMLD), Directive (EU) 2018/1673 on combating money laundering by criminal law (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2018/1673/oj…

Nicaragua, a leading apparel producer in Central America, has been suffering a decline in revenue on exports to the European Union (EU) this year, expect for one category that is bucking the trend: T-shirts.
According to the EU statistical office Eurostat, total revenue from the country’s apparel and footwear exports to the region dropped 6.8% to EUR178.2 million in the first half of 2019 from EUR191.2 million in the same period in 2018.…

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) fourth anti-money laundering directive had not even been implemented before Panama Papers revelations on massive tax evasion highlighted critical gaps in the bloc’s regulatory framework, especially regarding cryptocurrencies and prepaid cards. The result was directive (EU) 2018/843 of May 30, 2018 commonly known as the fifth anti-money laundering directive.…

Described by environmental campaigners as “the elephant in the COP21 negotiations room” when climate change proposals were agreed in Paris during 2015, today – the electrification of shipping is moving ahead apace.

From inland ferries to cargo barges and cruise ships, vessels are being built or retrofitted with renewable power propulsion sources, curbing the shipping industry’s major emissions.…

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.…

WHILE the spectre of Brexit looms over the British economy and hence its beauty markets, the fundamentals of its personal care product sector live on. As the UK ponders leaving the European Union (EU), maybe in October, commentators often cast a wary eye at Germany to see how this economic engine of the EU is performing – maybe to check whether Brexit is as big a business mistake as many experts warn.…

WITH anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) controls becoming ever more comprehensive, strategic and widespread, the demand for trained AML/CFT professionals is growing. Salaries are increasing, as a result. This good compensation reflects the fact that AML work is becoming increasingly demanding because of regulatory requirements, said Michael Harris, director, financial crime compliance, at LexisNexis Risk Solutions.…

THE EUROPEAN Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has recommended that companies concerned that their compliance with European Union (EU) chemical control system REACH might be impacted by Brexit should continue preparations for Britain’s possible withdrawal. With the UK having been given a new flexible exit deadline of October 31, ECHA has said it “recommends companies to continue preparing for a new, flexible withdrawal date”.…

THE LONG lines of customer to the cash register in Inditex stores – the giant Spanish company behind High Street fashion brands Zara, Bershka and Pull&Bear (among others) – are also now buying personal care products as well as clothes. They funnel customers through shelves that are not only bursting with low-cost impulse buys, such as hair accessories, smart phone covers and key rings, but now also Inditex scents.…

GREECE’S cosmetics sector showed significant resilience during the country’s long financial crisis and is currently expanding, as the country’s overall economy pulls ahead (1.9% GDP growth in 2018 and 2.1% projected for this year). However, problems afflicting the country’s personal care product regulations and a duty imposed on cosmetic producers might impact the sector going forward.…

THE GLOBAL sustainability trend continues to push boundaries in digital textile printing innovations and the Spanish market is no exception.

A spokesperson from the Spanish Textile Machinery Association (amec amtex – Asociación Española de Constructores de Maquinaria Textil) hailed digital printing as “one of the niches of the future for those companies oriented to more and more sophisticated market based on a sustainable and efficient production”.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) chocolate, biscuit and confectionery industry association CAOBISCO has raised concerns that EU exporters will be unable to exploit the reduction of Japanese tariffs under the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), in force since February 1. CAOBISCO is concerned about how the deal includes rules of origin forcing its members to demonstrate how they source specific volumes of ingredients from the EU, rather than their value, which would be easier to demonstrate.…

India’s potato chips/crisps market was worth USD2.59 billion in 2017 and is growing at an annual rate of 18.7%, data analytics firm GlobalData reports, and is expected to soar to a value of USD5.5 billion in 2022. The sale of branded chips sold by manufacturers across India is dominated by a handful of big companies – making up USD900 million of the segment’s total receipts, according to Indian ethnic food manufacturer and retailer Haldiram Snacks Pvt Ltd.…

WITH auto manufacturers looking for ways to light-weight electric and hybrid vehicles, to boost performance and battery life, the European Union (EU) is investing in a Spanish company that is seeking to develop recyclable thermo-plastic alternatives to rubber for auto parts.…

Regulatory change is encouraging solar PV self-consumption in Spain, but politics could yet dim the prospects of this growth.

The prospect of many more homes and businesses in Spain being able to affordably generate power for their own use from solely- or joint-owned solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies has brightened considerably.…

It is hard to avoid either a cosmetics store or an advertisement for one in Chinese cities today. A mind-boggling wave of new retailers set up by investment firms to cash in on the cosmetics and personal care boom are eagerly seeking franchisees around the country.…

Spanish pork producers are preparing to increase their exports to Japan as their high-quality products find niche orders amidst growing demand among Japanese consumers for unique meats.

At Foodex, Asia’s largest food and drink exhibition, in Tokyo, last month (March), Spanish sausage and cured ham producers secured orders after showing previously interested parties their updated products.…

US textile manufacturer HanesBrands says it has invested USD5.2 million in new technology and staff in El Salvador in the last six months and plans to inject USD5.2 million more in the central American country by the New Year. The international manufacturer has so far this year set up a new garment dying line at its San Juan Opico, La Libertad department plant, expanded its socks production in the same complex, and increased its workforce to meet global demand.…

Seeing strong growth in China’s adult-targeted, ready-to-eat (RTE) breakfast cereals sector, global cereals manufacturers are speeding up new product launches in China to stay competitive. Nestlé, for example, introduced Fitness Granola into China last May (2017), initially via its online stores.…

THE CHINESE market for breakfast foods, long dominated by its varied traditional meals, is starting to open to international options – and branded food manufacturers are taking note.

China has long seen a rich variety of foods being consumed at breakfast – congee and dumplings are favored by people in the south, while people in the north enjoy buns and noodles.…

China seems to have given the world nuclear industry back its mojo this summer with two big moves: the signing in June of an order for four Gen 3+ VVER-1200 reactors from Russia’s Rosatom. This certainly got the bubbly flowing at the World Nuclear Exhibition, in Paris, in late June, following two years of sluggish investment in this globalised industry.…

THE FRENCH paint and varnishes industry saw sales decline for the third consecutive year in 2016, contracting by 1.6% year-on-year to EUR2.9 billion, according to market research company Euromonitor International. It believes, however, that business should pick up in the coming years due to rising construction of homes.…

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has released plans to lend EUR225 million to Spain’s development ministry (ministerio de fomento) to help build a 4.5km double-track railway line, mostly in a tunnel, to access Barcelona’s El Prat airport’s two terminals. The EIB is involved because El Prat is part of the European Union’s trans-European transport networks, requiring better links to Spanish road and rail networks, said the bank.…

THE LEBANESE government has moved to ban the sale of certain Turkish products, including textile imports worth USD123.3 million a year, to protect local production.

However, Lebanon’s textile manufacturing sector is small, raising questions as to why Turkish textile imports should be banned.…

SPAIN’S personal care product market is continuing to grow after years of post-financial crisis weakness. Spain’s skincare, cosmetic and perfume industry continues to mature, and has turned in solid sales figures for 2017, reflecting the optimistic mood of the economy after the ‘lost’ years of the recession.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has launched a wide-range of initiatives to fight fraud, counterfeiting and corruption as it seeks to help law enforcers gain an advantage against cross-border crime.

A key element of this work is the so-called EU ‘security union’, about which proposals were tabled by the European Commission in April.…

Green and European Free Alliance (EFA) members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are calling on the Spanish government to block a requested extradition to Switzerland of a French-Italian whistleblower arrested in Spain on April 4.  Hervé Falciani revealed details of 100,000 accounts held by French nationals, including politicians and celebrities, to France’s then finance minister Christine Lagarde (now managing director of the International Monetary Fund – IMF) in 2006 and 2007 when working as a computer scientist at HSBC’s Swiss affiliate.…

INDONESIAN textile and garment manufacturers continue to flout environmental laws and dump hazardous waste into rivers despite pressure for the industry to be more environmentally friendly, activists and industry leaders warned.
“Medium and small sized companies, particularly those that serve the domestic market, have no incentives to be environmentally-friendly because their margins are small,” said Redma Gita Wirawasta, secretary general of the  the Indonesian Synthetic Fibre Manufacturers
Association (Apsyfi, Asosiasi Produsen Serat dan Benang Filament Indonesia).“So…

NORTH Africa is never an easy market in which to do business, and the Arab Spring and its turbulent aftermath has not helped ease trade, but as the paint industry looks to 2018, there is optimism that profits can be made.…

Despite the rise in alternatives, notably prepaid cards and cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, cash remains the instrument of choice for the world’s money launderers, say anti-money laundering experts.

Indeed, they say that a July 2015 report from European police agency Europol ‘Why is cash still king?’…

ACCA is pressing for clarification on some key outstanding issues regarding Britain’s impending departure from the European Union (EU), as the European Commission consults on a draft withdrawal agreement released on February 28.

Of key interest to Chas Roy–Chowdhury, ACCA’s head of taxation, is the length of time that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will retain jurisdiction over elements of British tax law, following the UK’s planned departure date on March 29, next year (2019).…

A COOPERATION Agreement has been struck between the European Union (EU) and the Agency for Aerial Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) over the mutual development of satellite navigation. The deal commits the EU to creating an autonomous satellite-based augmentation service (SBAS) to help ASECNA, which coordinates air navigation in 14 African countries and Madagascar.…

THE WORLD Trade Organisation’s (WTO) latest ministerial conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in December, failed to agree detailed policy for the global body, other than a commitment to negotiate a deal limiting fishing subsidies by next December (2018). A new agriculture agreement covering all food and drink remained elusive, with the USA calling for “plurilateral” agreements of “like-minded countries” going forward, that can be adopted by WTO member states after being concluded.…

IT was a key strength of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change that it set out a clear macro target of limiting global warming, while giving flexibility to supporting governments on how to achieve this goal. And the same could be said of the EU’s current approach towards promoting green energy – with broad targets linked to a range of policy choices regarding implementation (although there is plenty of detailed guidance – this is the EU after all).…

REFORMS now under discussion for European Union (EU) dairy subsidies and controls under the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) must keep the internal market intact, dairy industry experts have told Dairy Industries International. Their comments follow the European Parliament giving a ‘first reading’ vote in principle on December 12, to EU agricultural financial spending rules within a so-called ‘omnibus’ finance regulation.…

THE EUROPEAN industrial minerals industry has reacted positively to the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers’ formal approval, December 4, of new anti-dumping rules. Scheduled to come into force on December 20, they may help the EU impose anti-dumping duties against Chinese dumped industrial mineral exports.…

China appears to be stepping up a gear regarding its fight against money laundering, judging by the propaganda campaign ongoing across the country this winter. Uniformed staff of the Postal Savings Bank of China have, for instance, been out on the streets of the city of Jian in Jiangxi Province, handing out leaflets to pedestrians warning about the dangers of money laundering.…

‘Colourful’,’ young’, ‘big’ and ‘clever’ are words often bandied about to describe the positive qualities of Brazil, and they certainly could be used to define La Estampa, a Brazilian textile company specialising in digital print B2B.

With a global print capacity of 25,000 metres per day, La Estampa is able to punch its weight in global digital textile markets.…

RUSSIAN law-enforcement agencies have said they will conduct a detailed investigation into criminal allegations against Cherkizovo, Russia’s leading pork and poultry producer.

The management of the company is suspected of using illegal offshore financial schemes for paying dividends and lowering taxes, according to a spokesman of the Russian interior ministry has recently said.…

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s (ICBC) European headquarters, ICBC Luxembourg, is facing a major money laundering trial in Spain following a September 11 ruling in the Spanish High Court.

Judge Ismael Moreno agreed to a request from the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office to investigate ICBC’s European headquarters on suspicion of helping clients from the Chinese business community in Spain avoid duty and tax on goods imported from China.…

THE GREEK government says that it and seven other European Union (EU) member states may launch legal action over the Chinese government’s refusal to ban China-registered trademarks of products falsely marketed as traditional EU-made foods.

A document released by Greece’s economy and development ministry has claimed that France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain have agreed to join forces to finance a case in the Chinese courts.…

THE CHAIRMAN of the Cherkizovo Group, one of Russia’s largest meat producers and processors, is to consolidate his stake in the company through the acquisition of 21.3% of its shares, which are currently owned by Prosperity Capital Management, one of Russia’s largest investment funds.…

THE OUTGOING director general of the European Union (EU) anti-fraud office OLAF has stressed how his agency will continue to proactively fight fraud once the new European Public Prosecutors Office (EPPO) is established.

Giovanni Kessler, writing in the last OLAF annual report in his seven-year mandate, has stressed that his agency’s role will be important, now that just 20 out of 28 EU member states have decided to work with the EPPO.…

SEVEN years of recession and two years of capital controls have taken their toll not only on the Greek economy but also on the country’s cosmetics market, although local companies have been maintaining their focus on R&D and exports. According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority (Elstat), the overall turnover retail index for cosmetics and pharmaceutical products in February 2017 was 58.8% of sales in 2010 – the year marking the beginning of Greece’s financial and economic turmoil.…

OVER a sunny weekend in May 2017, 74,000 people headed to Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi, a futuristic events space built for the city’s 1992 Olympic Games, and many were going to learn about Spain’s organic and natural cosmetics products. On other occasions, these impressive numbers would be expected for the international pop stars who regularly perform here.…

A case detected last May (2015) at Lisbon international airport, Portugal, says much for the worrying scale of the laundering of illicit funds from Europe into mainland China. A nondescript Chinese couple travelling from Lisbon to Shanghai via the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Dubai was stopped carrying more than EUR1 million in large denomination notes found elaborately wrapped in ‘danger, chemicals’ packaging within packets marked ‘FRAGILE’.…

The Spanish manufacturer of cereal-based products Cerealto has reached an agreement to buy two factories from Spain-based bread and pastry manufacturers Grupo Sirio. With this move, Cerealto has said in a statement that it will “fortify its plans for expansion within southern Europe”.…

INDIA’S perfumery market is expanding with fast growing demand, easier availability of top brands and greater choice of products across the price range. According to market researcher Euromonitor International, the country’s overall fragrance market registered annual sales of USD298 million in 2016 and is projected to grow at an annual rate of 13.7% in next five year as the country’s USD2 trillion economy continues to grow at more 7% annually.…

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”.…

THE DIFFICULTIES that have surged in the diplomatic relations between the Mexican government and the new US administration of President Donald Trump have increased uncertainty within the Mexican personal care product market and industry.

With Mexico facing US demands to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with the risk of the US imposing temporary safeguard duties on Mexican exports to protect American manufacturers, companies in Mexico are seeking to boost domestic consumption.…

India’s perfumery market is expanding with fast growing demand, easier availability of top brands and greater choice of products across the price range. According to market researcher Euromonitor International, the country’s overall fragrance market registered annual sales of USD298 million in 2016 and is projected to grow at an annual rate of 13.7% in next five year as the country’s USD2 trillion economy continues to grow at more 7% annually.…

The oil and gas industry is reshaping its strategies, practices and values as it responds to global agreements on climate change and sustainable development. The 2015 United Nations Paris Agreement on climate change and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – which came into effect in January 2016 – are prominent among global governance challenges driving change in the oil and gas industry, but pressure just keeps building.…

THE PAKISTAN and Spain governments are working together to boost their countries’ bilateral trade, with textiles and clothing a key part of this commerce. sales of Pakistani textile goods exported to Spain is increasing, with receipts generated by all commerce between the two countries expected to generate at least USD1 billion this year (2017), Spain’s ambassador to Pakistan Carlos Morales has said (it exceeded this amount in 2016, said commerce ministry officials).…

European dried, cured and smoked meat producers are poised for a rapid expansion of export sales to Japan, with growing demand for such products that cannot be satisfied by Japanese specialist producers.

According to the Japan Retailers Association, an increasing supply of dried, cured and smoked meat from Europe is whetting consumers’ appetites and fuelling additional demand, both for food service and home market segments.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission should bring forward legislation to enhance due diligence for supply chains in the garment sector, the European Parliament’s development committee said yesterday (March 21). MEPs backed a report by Spanish MEP Lola Sánchez Caldentey from the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) group which asked the Commission to propose a European Union (EU) law saying a binding reporting system should generate data linking each product to its respective producers.…

Civil war, currency instability and smuggling are hitting the Libyan sheep market and stocks of the key Libyan Barbary Sheep breed are decreasing. It is a key source for both meat and wool. Dr Abdulla Elmansoury, Professor of Physiology at Libyan International Medical University, in Benghazi, where he is Dean of the Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, who is also a livestock farmer with holdings near Benghazi has seen his lamb business destroyed by the Libyan civil war that has continued since 2014.…

MOVES to curb dangerous levels of pollution from vehicle emissions are set to boost demand for new cars in Chile, just as the country’s auto market is emerging from a slump, officials predict.

The ongoing issue of poor air quality in the capital, Santiago, has prompted lawmakers to take dramatic action to limit the use of older cars on the city’s streets as part of a package of measures designed to highlight the commitment to beat the smog.…

THE OLIVE oil industry has traditionally been dominated by some key major European players, notably Spain, Italy and Greece, but with global consumption rising, production is emerging in countries which have previously relied on imports.

International Oil Council statistics show how new production centres are being created.…

NORTH Africa has never been a particular easy place to do business, but female and male consumers are prepared to spend on personal care products, and profits are there for the taking for companies that take time to understand these vibrant and often contrasting markets.…

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.…

THE INTERNATIONAL Confederation of European Beet Growers (CIBE) and the European Association of Sugar Producers (CEFS-Comité Européen des Fabricants de Sucre) have jointly called on the European Union (EU) to continue protecting producers with import tariffs, even as the EU negotiates 12 trade deals affecting the food industry.…

The manufacture of textiles for European buyers is likely to move away from its Chinese production base and move back closer to “home”, particularly in the technical markets, Lutz Walter, secretary general of the European Technology Platform for the Future of Textiles and Clothing (ETP) – the largest European textiles research and innovations network – has told WTiN.com.…

As China’s banks get bigger, they are also drawing the attention of global money laundering investigators. Eyes were certainly focused on Bank of China (BoC) earlier this year: the bank stands accused Florence police and public prosecutor’s office of funnelling EUR4.9 billion from Italy to China between 2007 and 2010 with Italian authorities claiming much of that figure was from the proceeds of crime.…

The word from David Lewis, the new secretary general of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), is that the UK’s impending ‘Brexit’ departure from the European Union (EU) should not immediately compromise the global fight against money laundering. “The United Kingdom is a founding member of the FATF and its membership and participation in the FATF is not dependent on its membership of the EU”, he told the Money Laundering Bulletin in an exclusive interview.…

THE SPANISH book sector has declared that it is optimistic about growth in sales at its annual LIBER International Book Fair, which wrapped up on Friday (Oct 14). A statement from the organisers said that there was a “positive feeling about the sector’s upswing”.…

The European Union’s (EU) executive, the European Commission, will next month file suit against EU member state governments over their failure to act on their response to the ‘dieselgate’ emissions cheating scandal. The EU internal market, industry, entrepreneurship and SMEs Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska told the European Parliament’s Committee of Inquiry into Emission Measurements in the Automotive Sector (EMIS) on Monday (September 12): “You will definitely see some infringement procedures next month.”…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has completed the first phase of an assessment designed to help the European Union (EU) frame its own blacklist of jurisdictions deemed un-cooperative over tax evasion and avoidance. Brussels has released a ‘scoreboard’ of non-EU jurisdictions judging whether they exchange information with foreign tax authorities, have preferential or low tax regimes, have close and important economic and financial links with the EU and are politically stable (and hence more attractive as a tax haven).…

The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) spa market experienced healthy growth in 2015 compared to 2014, increasing 11% in value terms to reach Emirati Dirham AED1.57 billion (USD428 million), according to market research company Euromonitor International.

In 2016, the market is predicted to grow by 9% to hit USD435 million year-on-year, accounting for nearly 14% of the Middle East and Africa’s USD3 billion spa market, according to Euromonitor.…

Three out of four people polled for a European Parliament-commissioned survey have said they wanted the European Union (EU) to do more to tackle tax fraud. Asked whether they would like the EU to intervene less than at present or more in “the fight against tax fraud” 75% said more, 14% said they wanted no change, 5% less and 6% answered they did not know.…

FOOD and drink manufacturers based in Britain face a risk that their exports to the European Union (EU) will attract duties now the UK government has confirmed it will push ahead with leaving the EU following the June 23 Brexit referendum result.…

GESTAMP, a Spanish multinational specializing in metal vehicle components, is researching ways to make lighter and safer cars after acquiring funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

“The project activities aim at further reducing vehicle weight (contributing to lower fuel consumption and emissions) [and] improving vehicle safety, while enhancing manufacturing productivity and reducing average production cost,” a Gestamp spokesperson told wardsauto.…

China is keeping alive unproductive “zombie” steel plants then dumping the products on the European Union (EU) market, the Spanish author of two key reports adopted in the European Economic and Social Committee yesterday (July 14) told Steel First. “Not only the steel industry, but the whole European industry, will suffer if the market economy status is unconditionally granted to China,” said Andrés Barcelό Delgado, referring to the debate over anti-dumping calculations for Chinese exports that is ongoing in Brussels.…

A DRAMATIC year for Pyrenees micro-state of Andorra has highlighted a debate over whether the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has excessive power over financial institutions outside America.

The American financial intelligence unit (FIU) issued a Notice of Finding (NOF) in March 2015, saying Banca Privada d’Andorra (BPA), one of only five banks in the principality, was a financial institution of “primary money laundering concern.”…

MIRRORING how Spain is crawling out of its long recession, the country’s personal care product market is recovering. UK-based market researchers Euromonitor released a report last month concluding: “After years of decline in value terms, beauty and personal care finally saw a positive performance in Spain in 2015.”…

COSMETICS and personal care product labelling and decoration continues to play a key role in differentiating brands on the shelf and creating an experience for the consumer. While many companies are moving towards more simple, clean looks, other higher-end brands still prefer eye-catching, metallic designs.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has protected four more meat traditional products – from Croatia, France, and Spain – by adding them to the European Union’s (EU) list of protected ‘geographical indications.’

This system prevents their sale under registered names across the EU, unless the products are made in their traditional home region and by established production methods laid down in the EU register.…

Spanish distributors and publishers have been busy meeting with Argentine buyers at the 42nd Buenos Aires International Book Fair, as Argentina’s new centre-right government lifting of import restrictions and a looming economic recovery improves the potential for sales. “Argentina is the new hotspot in Latin America,” Fernando López Daza, manager of Época Distribuciones, a Madrid-based distributor, said at the fair, which is being held from April 21 to May 9.…

The recent start of commercial operations at concentrating solar power (CSP) plants in Africa illustrates the potential for utility-scale CSP to capture an increasing share in the world’s power generation mix.

These plants include the 160 megawatt (MW) Noor 1 in southern Morocco, the foundation of what may become the world’s largest CSP generation site, and the 50MW Khi Solar One in South Africa.…

In less than a year, Brazil had three different civil aviation ministers, and Brazil’s ambitious airport development plans have been harmed. One of the trio – Mauro Lopes – is a member of the Chamber of Deputies that voted for the motion to impeach President Dilma Rousseff over allegations she warped government accounts.…

THE COMMITTEE of European Sugar Users (CIUS) has called on the European Union (EU) to take urgent action to prevent EU confectionery and sweet bakery manufacturers facing a sugar supply crunch this summer. In a strongly worded message, the industry group has said that duties and levies should not be imposed on supplies of beet and cane sugar and the EU’s cane sugar ‘CXL’ duty should be scrapped immediately.…

Luxembourg’s alliance with American space tech firms to create a European hub for asteroid mining is ambitious. But these innovators could be frustrated by something as down-to-earth as simple demand-and-supply.

If technology for landing probes on asteroids, digging up metals and flying them back to Earth is developed, then – sure – many mining investors will the frothing at the mouth over tapping space bodies full of platinum, palladium and rhodium.…

Poland has requested measures to help boost its struggling pigmeat sector at an European Council of Minsters’ agriculture and fisheries meeting, expressing “deep concern at the development of the situation in the pigmeat market.

A document circulated to EU ministers by the Polish delegation to the council said additional financial resources, or “exceptional support”, from the EU for the pigmeat sector to compensate for producers’ continuing losses resulting from Russia’s embargo and a drought in 2015.…

A recent crackdown on a counterfeit shampoo factory in Spain has shone a spotlight on a burgeoning and problematic underground illicit industry, operating across Europe with links to criminal gangs, money-laundering and terrorism.

A 2013 study by European Union’s (EU) trademarks and designs agency the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) says counterfeit cosmetics and perfumes in the EU netted EUR4.7 billion (USD 5.2 billion) in sales on average between 2008 and 2011.…

The Chilean chocolate market grow by almost 11% annually over the last four years to hit 2.4 kilogrammes annually per head during 2014, with Chile’s consumption overtaking Argentina for the first time, according to data from market analysts Nielsen. But while overall consumption is growing, Chileans are also becoming increasingly sophisticated in their tastes, which has given rise to a growing market for gourmet chocolates, both locally produced and imported.…

THE HIGH cost of electricity in Cambodia is holding the country’s textile investments from taking off, Blaise Kilian, the advocacy manager of the European Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia (EuroCham Cambodia) has told WTiN.

It is, he said, a “major obstacle” to investments in the textiles sector and “makes it economically unviable to power the heavy machinery required for such activity.”…

PRIVATE label brands for cosmetics and personal care products are attracting consumers with an increasingly wide range of offerings that stress their value-added nature, as well as affordable prices. Reflecting private labels’ innate reliance on quality and function rather than image, manufacturers supplying these products have been especially focusing on using scents to add value, from traditional florals to more adventurous notes.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission is investigating whether Spanish government support for Spain-based ICL Iberia Súria & Sallent (formerly Iberpotash) have breached European Union (EU) ‘state aid’ rules. These are designed to prevent EU governments from unfairly helping local companies within the EU’s 28 country border-free market.…

A two-year joint-operation between Europol and the Spanish Civil Guard (Guardia Civil) has shut down a EUR300 million money laundering and counterfeit goods network focused on Spain. ‘Operation Snake’ closed in on the gang on May 11, with more than 200 officers searching 65 residences and making 35 arrests.…

Mexico has commenced negotiations with the European Union (EU) that could boost its production and export of barytes, quartz, granite and silica sand – on average, say Mexican government mining officials, two thirds Mexico’s deposits of these minerals remain unexploited.
The talks, which started on the June 12 during the 7th EU-Mexico Summit in Brussels, set benchmarks for negotiations to upgrade a 15-year old free trade agreement (FTA) by tackling non-tariff barriers, extending intellectual property rights to more products and revising investor protection provisions.…

AUTOMAKERS in Europe are looking at what potential benefits they could draw from a future upgrade of a 15 years’ old free trade agreement (FTA) between the European Union (EU) and Mexico.
The two sides announced on Monday (May 11) that they are planning to start negotiations later this year, making it more comprehensive involving more regulatory harmonization than the existing deal that largely focused on tariff reduction: “We are aiming for an EU-Mexico deal that is comparable to the one with Canada and to the one to be concluded with the US”, the EU trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said, speaking in Brussels.…

While countries such as Bangladesh and Cambodia have a hold on global low-cost garment manufacturing, Thailand’s garment industry has found it needs to move up the international value chain to thrive – promoting digital technology is a priority means to this end.…

GOVERNMENT help in encouraging struggling auto markets can be very effective, but assistance needs to be phased out carefully so that sales booms do not turn into slump, the leader global automotive manufacturer federation OICA has told wardsauto.
In an exclusive interview, OICA (Organisation Internationale des Constructeurs d’Automobiles) secretary general Yves van der Straaten pointed to the phenomenal growth in the Spanish car market as an example.…

THE RISK of being kidnapped is a significant concern for those travelling for business to unstable and dangerous regions of the world. Yet, travellers can reduce these risks by following preventative measures and making smart plans, say business security experts. Elizabeth Machuca reports from Mexico City.…

SOUTH America’s personal care product sector has been is facing tougher times than usual – with some countries experiencing weaker sales last year and others faltering this year.
The region’s largest market Brazil is facing a rocky 2015, with a general slowdown in Brazil’s economy, expected to shrink by 1% in 2015.…

The merger plan involving Spanish fruit and vegetable cooperatives Grupo AN and the Unica Group will create a major business able to efficiently serve domestic and international markets, the groups have said. A joint statement stressed: “We want to achieve the best position in all markets, both domestic and international, and in all segments; fresh, preserved, frozen and middle and high end.…

The European Commission has amended European Union (EU) marketing rules for Spanish sloe spirit Pacharán by insisting that a generic description is used when the product is made outside Spain. In these cases, it should be labelled ‘Sloe-aromatised spirit drink’, with Pacharán used only as a supplementary descriptor alongside the country of manufacture.…

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has voted to allow individual European Union (EU) member states to reject the cultivation of genetically modified food on their territories, independent of what the situation is at EU level. This law, negotiated with the EU Council of Ministers, leaves room to national governments to ban the GMOs from being produced in their countries for other reasons than environmental or health risks.…

IT is a truism to say that in the information age, knowledge is power. But it is undeniable that the better mobile operators know their customers, the more they can sell. France-based Astellia, the innovative telco technology partner, has been digging deep into how data collection and analysis can help mobile operators understand users.…

Chinese travellers are increasingly venturing to Greece, offering great potential for its tourism industry. And while Greece’s exotic landscapes and architecture attract visitors from China, the tourism industry could prosper still further from developing services and infrastructure designed to cater to this growing market.…

SERIOUS concerns were raised today at the European Parliament over the impending abolition of European Union (EU) milk production quotas, as dairy prices continue to fall. A special hearing on the future of the industry heard (on Tuesday January 27) how the sector had been taken by surprise in the past year by production increases and export market losses through Russia’s embargo.…

After the recent announcement from the Spanish government that the country was finally exiting its five-year long economic downturn, book retailers were looking to the country’s long Christmas period for the proof of the pudding. Gift giving here traditionally takes place on January – the day of Epiphany – so the festive purchase period is longer than in many other countries.…

BEEF producers in Uruguay are emerging as the most progressive and successful in Latin America with a universal system for electronically tracking cattle and a continued surge in exports.

The country’s accumulated exports of beef products for 2014 (up to December 6) reached 229,907 tonnes – an increase of 5,750 tonnes compared to the same period in 2013, according to the National Meat Institute (Instituto Nacional de Carnes – INAC), which monitors and promotes the meat industry.…

MEXICAN inspectors have visited 15 meat businesses in Spain as trade negotiations between the European Union (EU) and Mexico raise the prospect of greater exports to the Latin American country.

Mexico is already the main non-EU market for Spanish cured, cooked and preserved pork products and hopes are high that pork meat will be included in any deal with the EU.…

ALMOST two years since its establishment in January 2013, the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) created as part of Europol, has delivered on its objectives, but still faces numerous resource challenges. Set up by the European Commission to support the 28 European Union (EU) countries in cybercrime investigations targeting online intrusion, fraud and child sexual abuse and to disrupt the operations of organised crime networks that commit a large share of cybercrimes, the EC3 is now receiving more requests for support that it can handle, its head, Troels Oerting, told Fraud Intelligence.…

The Spanish cosmetics industry has welcomed a free trade deal struck between the European Union (EU) and Ecuador, which is set to benefit European cosmetics producers with increased market access in thus South American market. An EU communiqué noted that the agreement will “provide improved access to the Ecuadorian market for many key EU exports,” adding: “it will also create a stable and predictable environment that will help boost and diversify trade and investment.”…

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is planning to lend Euro EUR50 million to Spanish pharmaceutical company Grupo Ferrer Internacional SA, to help it fund a EUR116 million’s worth of scheduled research and development. Studies that would receive financing if the EIB board of directors approves the plan includes medicines to treat central nervous system problems, infections and inflammatory diseases, oncology, diagnostics, plus cardiovascular, respiratory conditions.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced a further four European Union (EU)-funded marketing programmes promoting sales of EU-produced meat, within member states and abroad. These are in addition to the Euro EUR7.7 million programme promoting lamb sales run by British beef and lamb levy body Eblex, Ireland’s Bord Bía, France’s Interbev, announced earlier this week.…

Spain’s meat industry has formally requested that its government’s agriculture ministry asks the European Union (EU) to award EU geographical indication (PGI) status to jamón serrano (dry-cured, mountain ham). The Confederation of Spanish Meat Organisations (Confecarne) and the Spanish Serrano Ham Foundation (FJSE) are seeking the legal protections that PGI status would bring.…

THE EUROPEAN Parliament on Wednesday (8 October) voted to accept the Spanish commissioner-designate Miguel Arias Cañete for the climate and energy portfolio after a week of uncertainty. However, it rejected the former Slovenian prime-minister Alenka Bratušek as vice-president for the energy union in the new European Commission due to take office on November 1.…

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.…

THE INCOMING president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker has united the Commission’s portfolios of energy and climate action, nominating Spain’s Miguel Arias Cañete as energy and climate commissioner. If confirmed by the European Parliament, he will serve for the next five years.…

Forward-thinking digital strategies and ‘bringing the book to the buyer’ were the focus of Liber 2014, Spain’s leading book fair. Alternatively held in Madrid and Barcelona, this year’s fair saw 450 publishers, exporters, printers and related editorial services set up stands in Barcelona’s Fira trade fair buildings.…

A Spanish study project is working to find a way to join dissimilar metals for use in the automotive industry to increase the proportion of lighter weight parts. Research organisation CIC marGUNE, the Co-operative Research Centre into High-performance Manufacturing, based in Eibar, in the Basque Country, is coordinating a group of Spain-based studies whose aim is fusing different metals for auto production.…

Spain’s meat industry has formally applied to its government to pursue an application to the European Union (EU) to have jamón serrano (dry-cured, mountain ham) given protected EU geographical indication (PGI) status.

The Confederation of Spanish Meat Organisations (Confecarne) and the Spanish Serrano Ham Foundation (FJSE) want the greater protection that PGI status would bring.…

Spanish meat producers seeking new export sales to compensate for repeated bans on deliveries to Russia have stepped up efforts to woo importers and agents in Greece.
Business meetings last week in Athens were arranged after an introductory series of presentations delivered there in May.…

The European Union (EU) must continue awarding free allowances for carbon emissions to energy-intensive industries such as the non-ferrous metals sector, the EU’s energy and climate commissioner-designate Miguel Arias Cañete has said.

Speaking during his confirmation hearing in the European Parliament in Brussels yesterday (October 1), he said that free allowances should be given to efficient industry players through the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) to avoid pushing manufacturing out of Europe to jurisdictions with weaker climate controls.…

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.…

Over the past few years, Spain’s government has regularly questioned whether Gibraltar’s excellent economic condition has more to do with money laundering, smuggling and tax evasion than good business practice. “The wealth that Gibraltar enjoys cannot continue to be based solely on an economy that is clearly damaging for our country and for the European Union,” said Spain’s minister for European affairs Íñigo Méndez de Vigo in an interview with the Spanish newspaper ABC in September 2013.…

The European non-ferrous metals industry has welcomed the composition and the general policy thrust of the new European Commission team unveiled by incoming president Jean-Claude Juncker yesterday (Wednesday) but believes that the new team could face difficulties in confirmation hearings.

What happened?…

The European Union (EU) must continue awarding free allowances for carbon emissions to energy-intensive industries such as the non-ferrous metals sector, the EU’s energy and climate commissioner-designate Miguel Arias Cañete has said.

Speaking during his confirmation hearing in the European Parliament in Brussels yesterday (October 1), he said that free allowances should be given to efficient industry players through the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) to avoid pushing manufacturing out of Europe to jurisdictions with weaker climate controls.…

UTILITY executives will have been carefully analysing the unveiling on Wednesday (September 10) of a new European Commission team to take office from November 1. As well as new personnel, a key initial move with potentially important implications for European Union (EU) energy policy was the uniting of the current energy and climate portfolios.…

Product lifecycle management (PLM) systems help apparel companies share information more efficiently and plan for future lines more accurately as time-to-market shrinks.

Software such as the WFX Cloud PLM helps speed up companies’ processes from product concept and design to delivery at stores, said Jatin Paul, CEO of WFX (World Fashion Exchange).…

TAKING trends from runways and magazines and turning them into off-the-rack garments within weeks is no easy feat – but global fast fashion retailers consistently demonstrate that their supply chains are adequate.

While speed is, of course, an important part of the process, a shorter timeframe between garment design and point of sale does not necessarily mean a larger margin of errors.…

AS its name suggests, the lifeblood of the fast fashion industry is largely, speed to market – meaning that in many cases, traditional, weeks-long methods of shipping garments via sea or truck are no longer making the grade.

Fast fashion brands such as Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), Gap Inc, Uniqlo Co Ltd, Zara, F21 Red, Topshop, and Peacocks Stores Ltd rely on the air cargo industry to ship products quickly to stores around worldwide, according to a spokesperson from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).…

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”.…

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”.…

Latin America’s cosmetics and personal care products sector has boomed as consumers take advantage of their rising disposable incomes. The region (including Mexico) accounted for 17% of global sales in the beauty and personal care industry, according to market analysts Euromonitor International in 2013. …

US-based Baker & Taylor and Canada-based Whitehots Inc have agreed to cooperate in offering Canadian libraries and schools a one-stop, cloud-based platform to acquire and distribute print and digital material. “What was missing in the [Canadian] market was a Canadian company that was able to sell both print and digital materials to Canadian public and school libraries,” said Russ Culver, CEO of Whitehots.…

The European Commission has approved the use of ethyl lauroyl arginate (E-243) as a preservative in most heat-treated meat products in the 28-country European Union (EU). But the Commission has retained a ban on its use in emulsified sausages, smoked sausages and liver paste.…

WHEN the Trinidad & Tobago government in 2003 decided to close down much of the Caribbean country’s 300-year old sugar cane industry, it was described by detractors as one of the most politically ambitious moves in the history of the twin-island republic.…

The Nordic paints and coating market is competitive and growing, being dominated by a handful of strong players headed by Tikkurila and Teknos in Finland and Jotun in Norway. In Dyrup, the region could boast a fourth major local player, although American corporation PPG Industries paid the Danish firm’s parent, Monberg & Thorsen, EUR115 million for the company in 2011.…

GROWTH in the global nonwoven consumer wipes market is set to slow over the coming years, although a number of trends are encouraging brands and manufacturers in particular product segments such as baby wipes and anti-bacterial surface care products. Meanwhile, a growing range of innovations are emerging focused on producing flushable wipes.…

Innovations in sustainability for cosmetics and packaging were highlighted at the 47th Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna (April 4-7), in Italy. From natural, innovative materials to using traditional materials specifically designed to protect sustainable and organic products, Cosmoprof and its related Cosmopack exhibition emphasised the latest in cosmetics and personal care innovations, and offered a look at trends to come in 2015.…

The e-book market in Latin America is trailing far behind those in Europe and the United States, frustrating editors gathered at the 40th Buenos Aires International Book Fair – ‘Feria del Libro de Buenos Aires’ (April 24 to May 12).

In Argentina, where publishers and readers seem reluctant to abandon print, the e-book market has remained stagnant over the past year.…

AUSTRIA

The location of ECC Austria in central Vienna means many consumers drop by to receive advice or lodge complaints in person with the ECC’s five staff members. A top priority in 2013 was increasing public awareness about e-commerce fraud; a brochure aimed at combatting the problem was published and more than 600,000 were distributed throughout Austria.…

The Spanish meat industry has said it is relieved by its government’s decision to ignore recommendations to double its sales tax (value added tax – VAT) on meat products, but the meat sector is still unsure how an upcoming tax reform will affect it.…

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) research project has touted rapeseed cake as an effective feed for reducing livestock methane emissions while also providing biofuel. The study also suggests that the use of rapeseed cake improves digestion in ruminants.

Introducing rapeseed cake into livestock feed can cut methane and carbon dioxide emissions by up to 13%, say initial findings from the LIFE-SEED CAPITAL project.…

NORDIC nonwoven companies Suominen, Ahlstrom and Fibertex are fast emerging from the post-2008 economic downturn fitter and leaner. This follows five years of cost-cutting and market re-alignment projects that included unit divestments, strategic acquisitions, and increased use of automation to reduce costs and strengthen profitability.…

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

NEGOTIATIONS for a renewed International Agreement on Olive Oil are intensifying in Madrid. The agreement runs out at the end of this year and its member jurisdictions, of which the European Union (EU) is the biggest, are working to forge a new agreement by December.…

SPAIN’s veterinary organisation is promising a tough response to the fresh outbreak of Bluetongue disease in Spanish livestock. “Given the finding of virus recirculation, veterinary authorities have reinforced existing prevention, surveillance and control (in affected areas), in order to obtain more information on the epidemiological situation of the disease and control the possible spread of the virus,” said Red de Alerta Sanitaria Veterinaria (RASVE, Spain’s veterinary health alert network).…

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) RASFF food safety alert service has warned of e-coli being detected in Brazilian meat cargoes exported to Europe. Dutch customs officials rejected three consignments of chilled beef from Brazil after discovering they had been contaminated with shigatoxin-producing Escherichia coli.…

THE BEST packaging always seems to be an integral part of a product – indeed for personal care product consumers, the appearance of a container can be why they make a purchase. So for brands, making packaging decorations and finishing seem to melt into a product can be or critical importance.…

THE INSULATION of heated livestock buildings and replacing soya with rapeseed in animal feed are some of the measures livestock farmers can use to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a European Parliament workshop heard this week (Tuesday) in Brussels.

“About 40% of the total GHG emissions of agriculture in France come from methane from ruminants and their manure,” Dr Sylvain Pellerin, research director at the French National Agriculture Research Centre (INRA) told members of the European Parliament (MEPs).…

SPANISH vine growers stand to receive nearly Euro EUR130 million in public support in 2014 to establish or replant vineyards, change grape varieties, or to adapt production to meet the requirements of particular regional wine brands. The sum approved in discussions between central and regional governments is a small increase on the 2013 allocation.…

SPANISH meat producers secured increasingly healthy prices in 2013 as the country crept out of recession in the second half, figures from its ministry of agriculture, food and the environment (MAGRAMA) show.

Category E pork (55% – 59% leanness) rose by 11.4% on 2012 to average EUR1.936 per kilo, 10.3% greater than the European Union (EU) average, peaking at EUR2.171/Kg.…

AN INTERNATIONAL higher education conference has underlined the major progress made in building links between the universities of neighbouring countries in Latin America. But it also highlighted the significant remaining challenges facing Latin American higher education if it wants to be truly integrated with tertiary institutions worldwide.…

BANGLADESH’S garment makers face a drought of summer 2014 orders as western retailers have begun fleeing the South Asian nation after recent political violence and a physical attack on Spanish buyers.

Top industry leaders said that global buyers, seeking stable alternatives, have already diverted 30%-35% of orders to Bangladesh’s rivals, with India, Indonesia and Vietnam emerging as winners.…

THE FEDERATION of European Publishers (FEP) has welcomed this weekend’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) deal on reducing import-export red tape.

Speaking to The Bookseller, FEP deputy director Enrico Turrin told the Bookseller: “It can only help. Anything that helps remove barriers will facilitate trade.”…

AN INTERNATIONAL higher education conference has underlined the major progress made in building links between the universities of neighbouring countries in Latin America. But it also highlighted the significant remaining challenges facing Latin American higher education if it wants to be truly integrated with tertiary institutions worldwide.…

LEADING law associations worldwide are joining forces to publish in-depth case studies of how lawyers and other legal professionals become unwittingly enmeshed in money laundering by clients.

The Money Laundering Bulletin has learned that the London-based International Bar Association (IBA) is to produce such a report amid disgruntlement over a June 2013 study in which the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) published typologies of money laundering methods in which lawyers were involved.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) and Canadian oil exporters are to benefit from a new free trade deal struck between the EU and Canada. Once the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) has been ratified (probably in 2015), it will lead to all existing non-food duties imposed on goods traded between the parties being scrapped.…

TOUGH economic times in Europe’s tourism centres of Spain and Greece have depressed air travel to and from these countries, recently released European Union (EU)-wide statistics from EU statistical agency Eurostat show. It said flights to and from Spain fell by 3.3% to 160 million in 2012, with 8.9% year-on-year falls in traffic at Madrid-Barajas airport and 6.6% at Gran Canaria; flights to and from Greece fell 5.5% to 31 million year-on-year, with a 10.2% decline at Athens International.…

E-books now look more like evolution than a revolution in Spain. Overall sales of books were Euro EUR2.47 billion last year, down 10.9% on 2011 and 28.9% below 2008. E-book sales were EUR74.3 million, just 3% of the sector, representing 54,714 copies sold.…

Discussions are scheduled over the next week between management and unions as the indefinite strike that has halted production at Spanish baker Panrico’s Santa Perpètua de Mogoda factory in Barcelona since October 13 continues. Discussions centre on a viability plan put forward by management.…

Any market and industry benefits from supply diversification, so major textile and clothing companies can take heart from continued innovation amongst fibre and fabric producers over sourcing. This extends, for instance, to sourcing material from unusual places such as milk and fishing nets, while creating more opportunities for traditional sources such as flax.…

SPAIN has banned added sugar from fruit juices and nectars effective October 28, 2013 in line with the European Union (EU) juices directive 2012/12/EU. New rules for making, labelling, presenting and advertising juices and similar products also require identifying the amount of individual juices within mixtures.…

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) food and feed safety rapid alert network (RASFF) has warned of continued detections of salmonella contamination of imported meat and meat products across Europe. In most instances, consignments were exported from other EU member states. It reported six salmonella meat contamination cases between October 21 and 24 for instance.…

The Russian government has once again questioned the quality of Polish meat imported into its territory, raising concerns in Poland that Russia might impose import restrictions or a ban. On October 4 Russia’s meat inspectorate, Rosselkhoznadzor, said laboratory tests had turned up pathogenic bacteria in poultry and frozen pork from two plants in Poland.…

THE NEW terminal at the principal international airport in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, Ministro Pistarini International, was inaugurated in March, increasing its total capacity to 13 million passengers – last year (2012) it struggled to accommodate 8.8 million passengers.…

DIGITAL innovation and exports dominated discussion at the 31st edition of Liber 2013, Spain’s leading book fair, which ended on Sunday (October 6) in Madrid after drawing 10,000 visitors, compared with 6,000 last year in Barcelona.

And while 450 exhibitors and 300-plus international buyers almost universally framed their comments in terms of recession, robust overseas sales and advances in e-publishing made for a slightly more positive mood than last year.…

THE NEW terminal at the principal international airport in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, Ministro Pistarini International, was inaugurated in March, increasing its total capacity to 13 million passengers – last year (2012) it struggled to accommodate 8.8 million passengers.…

The European co-generation sector has been looking hard for a competitive edge and one area of innovation that has helped it improve its energy efficiency is in the convergence of software, control and instrumentation, internet and wireless communication, and smart grids.…

WITH Europe’s economy still struggling to deal with the fall-out of the global financial crisis, its co-generation sector has had to fight to expand, or in some cases hold its position. Tightening national government budgets have meant that the co-gen industry has had to argue persuasively for public subsidies and tax breaks, or even the right to have equal treatment with renewable energies.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission is proving a new Spanish tax break, saying it could break European Union (EU) state aid laws limiting the payment of public subsidies. Spain plans to allow tax deductions for indirect acquisitions by Spanish residents and companies of shareholdings in non-Spanish companies, which are not available for such purchases within Spain.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission is threatening legal action against Portugal for offering tax benefits to non-resident companies more than 25% owned by Portuguese residents, while denying them to other non-resident companies. Brussels says this breaks European Union (EU) fair trading rules and could ask the European Court of Justice to order Portugal to reform these rules.…

‘LA TORRE PUIG,’ the 22-storey Puig Tower now being fitted out in the Plaza de Europa, of the Catalan capital, Barcelona, for Puig SL, the family owned fragrances and fashion firm, will be yet another landmark building for one of Europe’s most beautiful cities.…

THE ACRONYM ‘PIGS’ to mean Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, was never very kind. It was abusive European Union (EU) jargon claiming that these countries were poor and their governments, profligate. Sadly, the international financial crisis showed that there was some truth in this and the four countries have since 2008 had to slash public spending to stave off national bankruptcy, and their collective road and public transport sectors have suffered.…

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has now formally approved a new European Union (EU) offshore oil and gas drilling directive, designed to prevent accidents such as the Deepwater Horizon spill happening in coastal EU sea waters.

These new rules will require oil and gas firms to prove they can cover potential liabilities from accidents and submit major hazard reports and emergency response plans to regulators before drilling operations start.…

BIOMETRICS technologies producing voice and phone ‘fingerprints’ to prevent, detect and prosecute fraud and other crimes are evolving rapidly in an arms race between fraudsters, law enforcement, private companies and private sector anti-fraud companies.

For forensics, many jurisdictions admit voice biometrics in evidence.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) negotiators are approaching the final decision over the future of EU sugar quotas, with a deal expected between the European Parliament and EU Council of Ministers by the end of June. What is almost certain is the current phase-out date of 2015 is dead.…

is traditionally a major supplier of biodiesel to the European Union (EU) market, but trade flows have reduced sharply in the past year and could fall further with an anti-dumping duty soon expected. An additional anti-subsidy countervailing duty may also be imposed on the Southern Cone nation.…

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.…

The agreed acquisition of Spain headquartered steel waste recycler Befesa Medio Ambiente has moved on with formal notification to the European Commission for consideration by European Union competition watchdogs.

Befesa’s Spanish parent Abengoa announced in April that it had struck an exclusive agreement to sell 100% of its subsidiary to an acquisition vehicle of a fund managed by private equity firm Triton Partners in a deal valued by Abengoa at EUR1.075 billion and which was approved earlier this month by Abengoa bondholders.…

SPANISH cava and fine wines exporter Freixenet is stonewalling questions about reports that it could be on the verge of acquiring a bodega in the Rías Baixas area of Galicia, northwest Spain.

“We neither confirm nor deny this,” Freixenet spokeswoman Marta Raventos told just-drinks after Spanish-language drinks and food newsletter Alimarket suggested that the privately-held Catalan firm could soon re-establish a winemaking presence of its own in the area.…

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has told Spain it should cease immediately taxing unrealised capital gains when a company transfers its base or assets to another European Union (EU) member state. Ruling that this breaks EU taxation fairness rules, judges said a company from Spain “is penalised financially as compared with a similar company which carries out such transfers in Spanish territory…,” which does not have to pay such tax.…

The Argentine government’s economic protectionism is thwarting the growth of e-book sales, experts at the International Book Fair in Buenos Aires said this week.
The country’s 39th book fair, which ended on Monday, was attended by a total of 1.1 million people, said fair organisers.…

THERE are many ways to maintain and repair a road, so it always makes sense to look widely at good practice examples. Here The Surveyor has used its foreign correspondent team to assess techniques in some diverse pars of continental Europe.…

THE ARAB Spring may have increased short-term doubts about the political stability of Europe’s southern and eastern Mediterranean neighbours, but the long-term case for energy cooperation between these regions is surely unarguable.

Europe needs more energy than it can generate, and it has (for the time being at least) money to buy energy from north Africa and the Levant.…

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) recent decision to impose antidumping duties on imports of bioethanol from the United States is triggering fears that trade remedy measures may become the new tool of choice for protecting domestic biofuel producers from foreign competitors.

EU ministers decided on February 18 to impose a definitive (long-term) antidumping duty of Euro EUR0.63 cents per metric tonne on US bioethanol imports in response to a complaint from the European Renewable Ethanol Association (ePURE).…

THE PRESIDENT of the Andalucía regional government in Spain has been publicly accused of being a key figure in a EUR130 million-plus scandal involving the alleged fraudulent use of Spanish public and European Union (EU) funds. In a case rocking the socialist party the PSOE, the main opposition in the national government, investigating judge Mercedes Alaya has ordered that Andalucía’s former director general of employment, Francisco Javier Guerrero, should remain in jail without bail.…

WHILE Latin America has not seen the growth witnesses by emerging markets in Asia, their paint and coatings sectors are still strengthening, and can build on a higher historic levels of prosperity than most Asian countries.

And the industry is more robust than many.…

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.…

Money laundering takes place in the arts world and much of it at auctions, only the arts world doesn’t like to talk about it much. And anti-money laundering (AML) experts understand the methods used. At a Paris conference held last February (2012) by the Syndicat National des Antiquaires (the French national union of antique dealers) the director of the l’Institut de Criminologie de Paris, Philippe Conte, explained how launderers would put a work up for auction, to be bought by an accomplice in cash using dirty money.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU police agency Europol has warned of how to avoid fake messages from police forces defrauding computer users into paying bogus fines after a spate of con attacks. Europol has circulated this advice to EU businesses after Spanish police and the agency’s newly established European Cybercrime Centre dismantled what they called in a note “the largest and most complex cybercrime network dedicated to spreading police ransomware”.…

WHAT impact could uncertainty in the run-up to a promised British referendum on continued membership of the European Union (EU) have on investment flows from the UK into commercial property and developments in the rest of the EU?

What might the impact be if a referendum did indeed take place and voters told their government loud and clear to quit the EU and free up the UK to make its own laws and regulations covering important aspects of finance, investment and tax?…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has asked oil and gas companies to participate in a major public consultation designed to help it draft reforms promoting the development of new energy technologies. Brussels is planning to release a new policy paper on the subject in the middle of this year.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has put forward an action plan aimed at creating a lasting remedy for Europe’s troubled olive oil sector which has suffered a near-calamitous loss of profitability in recent years. Unveiled last June, the plan follows a sequence of temporary and not wholly successful boosts to the sector in the form of injections of private storage aid between October 2011 and May last year.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

Spain has been ordered to pay a fine of Euro EUR20 million (USD26 million) and penalties of EUR50,000 per day starting December 11, 2012, in an illegal steel subsidy case. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that Spain has ignoring a European Commission declaration made in 1989 that its government should recover unlawful public subsidies paid to Indosa, a company declared insolvent in 1994.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

WINNERS

Nike

Multinational sporting goods giant Nike made positive moves to shrug the bad PR associated with low cost sourcing, announcing it was "changing the rules of the game" in May, with a new factory rating system – the Sourcing & Manufacturing Sustainability Index.…

BY ROBERT STOKES, IN MALAGA

RANDOM House is bullish about selling more English and Spanish language titles in Spain and Latin America as a result of its planned merger with Penguin Books and outright purchase of Spain’s Random House Mondadori (RHM).…

BY ROBERT STOKES, IN MALAGA

RANDOM House is bullish about selling more English and Spanish language titles in Spain and Latin America as a result of its planned merger with Penguin Books and outright purchase of Spain’s Random House Mondadori (RHM).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PRESSURE is growing on European Union (EU) ministers to give the EU’s sugar production quota system a stay of execution. MEPs on the European Parliament’s agriculture committee have called for the retention of EU sugar quotas for beet farmers until 2020, rather than follow existing plans to phase them out in 2015.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

THE SATURATION of mobile devices, telecommunications and social networking in today’s digital age has created a society of real-time connectivity, where the Internet and its applications are no longer confined to a desktop computer. However, an increasing dependency on digital identity has also generated new risks in terms of cybercrime, where technology users have become more susceptible, depending on the number of devices and applications they use.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

PLASTICS moulds made in half the time and at two-thirds of the current price suddenly look more than a dream to European mould-makers battling against tough price competition, particularly from the far east.

The European Commission recently reported the success of Foinmoulds, a Euro EUR1.2 million European Union (EU)-funded R&D project to increase productivity and efficiency of injection processes by integrating metallic foams into moulds.…

BY ROBERT STOKES, IN MALAGA

SPAIN is agog at a wave of high-profile arrests in the busting of a Chinese-run money laundering ring estimated to have involved Euro EUR1.2 billion of dirty money. A key aim of the investigation was to stop the economy being distorted by the sale of cheap, fake designer goods through Chinese bazaars.…

BY ROBERT STOKES, IN MALAGA

12 SEPTEMBER 2012

SPAIN’s ailing book industry has seen things go from bad to worse throughout 2012 as the country moved centre stage in the Eurozone crisis, government austerity measures hit hard, and unemployment hovered around 25%.…

BY SHEENA ROSSITER, IN SÃO PAULO; RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, IN NEW DELHI; HELEN CLARK, IN HANOI; AND WANG FANGQING, IN SHANGHAI

THE GROWTH in outsourcing has been maybe the most important trend in the clothing and textile sector in the past decade, with emerging market countries offering increasingly reliable and sophisticated services.…

BY SHEENA ROSSITER, IN SÃO PAULO; RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, IN NEW DELHI; HELEN CLARK, IN HANOI; AND WANG FANGQING, IN SHANGHAI

WHILE the focus on emerging markets for the big international clothing brands has often been to view them as outsourcing opportunities, the truth is that there are a lot of people with a lot of money in these countries.…

BY NICK HOLDSWORTH, IN KALUGA, RUSSIA

CARMAKERS were celebrating on July 4 when the first of four new models rolled off a state-of-the-art production line in a 145 hectare plant in Kaluga, western Russia. The latest in an ongoing expansion of Russia’s auto sector, a bright, clean, airy and surprisingly quiet car assembly plant is surrounded by fields and forests: Peugeot Citroen’s Russian joint venture with Mitsubishi, PCMA Rus has pressed the button to start full scale production that will deliver 125,000 a year vehicles specially designed for the Russian market.…

BY ROBERT STOKES IN MÁLAGA

THIS year I have abandoned my premium brand sun screen in favour of a Deliplus private label product sold by the Spanish supermarket group Mercadona for around EUR 5.00, saving around EUR 12.00 into the bargain.…

BY GERARD O’DWYER

DENMARK’S government and financial regulators have been increasingly busy since 2005 reinforcing the country’s relatively relaxed anti-money laundering (AML) laws. Despite the introduction of the Danish Act on Measures to Prevent Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in March 2006, and legislative amendments since, reports of suspected money laundering incidences have continued to increase year-on-year in Denmark.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

With ‘timeless’ fashion rarely on the minds of many multinational retailers, a successful style retail strategy is now often a race against the clock instead, as consumers’ appetites for a revolving door of apparel trends continues to grow in the era of ‘fast fashion’.…

BY LEE ADENDORFF

Fast fashion has had a fundamental impact on the apparel industry in the space of just a few decades, with global fashion giants such as Zara and H&M demonstrating a previously unthinkable production speed, with the ability to get a garment from concept to store in less than 12 weeks.…

BY JONATHAN GILBERT, IN BUENOS AIRES

ARGENTINA’S increasingly protectionist government is under fire from local ham purchasers after confirming that it was blocking imports of Spanish and Italian ham as it seeks to protect domestic meat producers.

Anger is growing in Europe over Argentina’s controls on a wide range of imported goods with the European Union (EU) launching disputes proceedings at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) last month (May 25) against the South American nation, alleging it is violating international trade rules.…

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 KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is preparing to release calls for research proposals commanding millions of Euros of European Union (EU) funding, offering opportunities for innovative liquid fuel and oil production. The initiative is the last batch of funding under the outgoing EU seventh framework programme on research, which ends next year.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

ALGAE have been heralded as the universal raw material of the future for biofuels, agricultural feed, nutritional supplements, biochemicals and cosmetics. They gobble up CO2, can clean up waste water, and many will thrive in seawater when the fresh variety is usually limited to the sunnier climes where algae can be grown more cheaply.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

ALGAE have been heralded as the universal raw material of the future for biofuels, agricultural feed, nutritional supplements, biochemicals and cosmetics. They gobble up CO2, can clean up waste water, and many will thrive in seawater when the fresh variety is usually limited to the sunnier climes where algae can be grown more cheaply.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN scientists working with major aerospace company EADS say they have developed air traffic management artificial intelligence software forcing planes to change direction if they are on a collision course. This would happen for potential crashes with another aircraft or a building, and would see navigation systems operate automatically, without pilot assistance.…

BY ROBERT STOKES, IN MÁLAGA

JUST like El Dorado, the never-was city of gold, Latin America’s 390 million Spanish speakers, are a siren call to Spanish publishers, whose domestic market numbers just 46 million souls. There is even a side bet on 190 million Portuguese speaking Brazilians

Some publishers, lured by these big numbers, have tried and failed in the past, foundering on the reefs of censorship, economic and currency volatility, and the local business culture, though taking forever to get paid – if at all – should not have come as a shock to Spanish firms.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE CARIBBEAN is a delightful place to live, if you like people. And business reflects this island region’s human scale: commercial relationships work better with real personal relationships, cemented with time and emotional investment.

Buying a newspaper usually requires a quick chat with a shopkeeper.…

BY KACI RACELMA, IN TIZI OUZOU, ALGERIA

A TERRORIST attack on March 3 targeted the local headquarters of Algeria’s national rural police force ‘El Dark El Watani’ (in the southern Algerian border town of Tamanrasset with a booby-trapped car, leaving 23 people wounded.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

BILATERAL trade agreements between European Union (EU) and emerging economies have helped cushion EU plastics moulders and machinery suppliers as more important domestic markets have weakened in recession and the Eurozone crisis.

It is a two-way street: lower priced machinery from China and India has made inroads into EU markets for applications requiring less technologically sophisticated kit.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

ACCOUNTANTS and auditors in Greece have found themselves at the centre of the country’s ongoing political and economic crisis, and it is a far from comfortable place to be. Depending on who one speaks to, Greek official data had been cooked either when the country entered the Eurozone or when it asked for help; Greece was either saved by default or managed a controlled default; the conditions for the bailout loans by the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are either putting Greece back on track or are deconstructing the labour and social framework of the country.…

BY MARK GODFREY, IN BEIJING

CHINA’S growing numbers of wealthier consumers are now being targeted by local brands producing meat to organic standards but at prices to match and according to a flurry of standards that can be confusing to understand.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

DEMAND for chromium could receive a boost from European Union (EU)-funded research that has used nanotechnology to help fix chrome finishes onto plastic materials to make auto parts look classy, while reducing vehicle weight, has been hailed as a success.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is to further reduce its maximum rates for mobile roaming tariffs from July 1, and also introduce cap EU mobile data service charges for the first time. Under a deal struck between the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers, these would cost no more than Euro EUR0.70 cents from that day, with the cap falling to EUR0.45 cents in 2013 and EUR0.20 cents in 2014.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU)-funded research project that has used nanotechnology to help fix chrome finishes onto plastic materials to make auto parts look classy, while reducing vehicle weight, has been hailed as a success. The EU executive the European Commission has released a report on the benefits of the Ecsam project, which is being followed up with studies into other ways of attaching metallic finishes to plastics.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

OLIVE oil growers in the European Union (EU) are currently facing an increasingly frustrating situation: while demand is growing internationally and harvests have been unusually good in recent years, prices are falling at a rapid rate, threatening the livelihood of the thousands of farmers in the main growing countries.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, IN BEIRUT

THE SYRIAN economy is in bad shape: sanctions have been slapped on the country by the United States and the European Union (EU), and the uprisings that began in March last year continue unabated. But while one of Syria’s main revenue earners – fossil fuel oil – has been affected by instability and international sanctions, its olive oil sector has had its best year ever harvest, estimated at 200,000 tonnes.…

BY ROBERT STOKES, IN MALAGA

The Spanish language Kindle was the bestselling product on the recently launched Amazon.es website throughout the holidays culminating on January 6, the main day for gift giving in Spain. Customers ordered more EUROS EUR 99 Kindles than any other product on its site, Amazon said.…

BY NADJA DROST

AMIDST a global gold rush spurred on by historically high prices, Colombia, with vast tracts of unexplored gold deposits, is emerging as a major source of the precious metal.

But Colombia’s gold boom is providing the country’s numerous illegal armed groups with sundry new ways to finance their wars as well as launder their ill-gotten profits.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

The Commission action was welcomed in Spain by the Federación de Gremios de Editores de España (FGEE), the Spanish publishers association: "In whatever case, we would like the Commission to investigate positions of market dominance and abuses by certain operators," said Antonio María Ávila, FGEE’s executive director.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

FROM fabrics that moisturise and kill bacteria to bizarre weather and media scandals, the global style sector in 2011 certainly had its share of unusual news and unpredictable developments.

The year started off with the backlash of December’s massive snowstorms disrupting post-Christmas shopping along the northern east coast in the US, causing an abrupt halt to a two-month spending spree which began at the beginning of November 2010.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WINNERS

VF

In one of 2011’s biggest deals, US-based VF announced its plans to buy major footwear brand Timberland in a US$2bn takeover. As well as boosting earnings by US$700m a year, the purchase would leverage VF platforms in Europe, Asia and Latin America, and boost e-commerce operations.…

BY MARK GODFREY

THE iPhone 4 and pricey bottles of Bordeaux appear to have become unlikely but essential business tools to crack the China market. "We have staff flying to Hong Kong to get them as soon as they hit the Apple Stores there," explains a European dealmaker who links state-owned Chinese energy firms with Western suppliers of turbines and high-tech tooling machines for the energy sector.…

BY PETER DA COSTA

The European fashion industry’s big names have been told by European Union (EU) industry Commissioner Antonio Tajani that their design and craftsmanship would enable the sector to hold its own in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. Speaking at a lunch in Brussels yesterday, attended by just-style, Tajani said European fashion design needed to be guided by demanding tastes of Europe’s customers at home rather than the demands of retailers abroad, and quality would surely follow: "European fashion is for consumers, not only companies", he said.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

LEADING Spanish health experts are recommending a sharp hike in alcohol taxation to counter Spain’s relatively high consumption and related social costs. Researchers at the Barçelona Public Health Agency (BPHA) made the call in the influential journal Revista Española de Salud Pública.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

INTELLIGENCE agencies by their very nature are secretive. So too are budgetary expenses and the ways in which agencies finance operations, especially in foreign jurisdictions and where they carry out so-called ‘black ops’. The techniques to quietly transfer funds do not in fact differ that widely from organised crime or terrorist groups, using banking services, front companies, charities and the like.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

AMAZON’s arrival in Spain has lit a slow flame under the soles of Spanish booksellers, but the e-tailer faces obstacles to growth that do no afflict it in the UK and America. Amazon.es launched September 15 and will be hot gossip at the LIBER Madrid International Book Fair, the main platform for publishers of works in Spanish, which begins October 5.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of a possible Greek Euro exit and default. GrExit, as it has been termed, could have catastrophic repercussions for European and possibly the global economy or it could provide some kind of solution for the troubled Eurozone and the heavily indebted country.…

BY LEE ADENDORFF

THE growth of data revenues and emerging markets contrasted with lacklustre domestic business, particularly in southern Europe, have dominated latest financial figures from the EU’s ‘big five’ telcos – Telecom Italia, Telefónica, France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has today (July 15) approved without conditions the planned takeover by Brazilian steel and mining company CSN of one German and two Spanish steel companies. Following a fast-tracked inquiry by the Commission’s competition directorate general, Brussels approved CSN’s purchase of Stahlwerk Thüringen, which makes of semi-finished and long steel products; as well as semi-finished and long steel maker Corrugados Azpeitia; and Corrugados Lasao which manufactures steel electro welded mesh.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE PLANNED takeover of Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Metal Forming (TKMF) by Spanish-owned Gestamp Automoción has cleared a major hurdle, receiving regulatory approval from the European Commission. It has cleared the deal without condition, using its European Union (EU) competition powers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is drafting legislation seeking to break regulatory and financial logjams preventing the European Union (EU) achieving ambitious planned gas infrastructure investments. A Commission working paper predicts the proposal will come in October and warned red-tape and financial shortages are potentially delaying cross-border interconnection and pipeline projects worth billions of Euros.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

European Union (EU) member states have agreed a final package of aid to EU fruit and vegetable producers compensating them for lost sales following the German e-coli outbreak, with total subsidies Euro EUR226 million.

This is up from the EUR210 previously discussed and will see the EU pay for cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, courgettes, and sweet peppers withdrawn from sale between May 26 and June 30 over E-coli contamination concerns.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

IT might sound like science fiction, but airport managers really are exploring the use of robots to boost security at airports. Partly this is because for some potentially extreme events, it is better to put a robot in harm’s way, rather than humans.…

BY MARK GODFREY

MAKING overseas purchasing easier for Chinese tourists is influencing domestic cosmetics sales in China. Paul French, co-head of Shanghai based market research firm Access Asia sees the reach of Chinese tourists as vital to recent success in China for higher end overseas brands such as Kiehls and L’Occitane.…

BY JUSTIN STARES

ACCOUNTANTS could help the European Union’s (EU) anti-fraud watchdog track down embezzlers, according to the newly appointed chief. In an interview at his Brussels office Giovanni Kessler, director general of European anti-fraud office OLAF, believes there is room for greater involvement of the private sector in both uncovering fraudsters and reporting fraud.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU)-funded research project will this month start developing a prototype polymer-zinc car battery, significantly lighter, safer and more environment-friendly than existing batteries. Their lead acid, lithium and nickel bases have waste disposal, weight and chemical stability problems.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU)-funded research project is about to start developing a prototype zinc-polymer car battery, which its scientists hope will be significantly lighter, safer and more environment-friendly than existing batteries. These are of course based on lead acid, lithium and nickel – all carrying problems associated with waste disposal, weight and chemical stability.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CONCERNS within the European auto industry about the trade deal initialed last October by the European Union (EU) and South Korea have been addressed today (Wednesday) at the European Parliament. Meeting in Brussels, its international trade committee gave its approval to draft legislation, allowing the swift reintroduction of trade barriers, should the deal create a surge in Korean car exports to Europe.…

BY ALYSSA MCMURTRY

Spanish canned fish products giant Conservas Garavilla has said its takeover of the family owned Conservas Cuca last Thursday is "one step more in consolidating its position as a national leader of this industry." So said Estanislao Garavilla, president of holding company Galicia-based Grupo Garavilla.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE

Airport security operators may soon be using a new breed of scanning technology if innovation from Canadian technology company VOTI is approved by authorities.

At the Dubai Airport Show, VOTI told Jane’s Airport Review that its scanners were already being piloted at some courthouses and prisons in Canada, with good results.…

BY ALYSSA MCMURTRY

TO imagine fashion intrinsically and traditionally Spanish, one may imagine long, flowing flamenco dresses, shoes built for stomping, or big flowers gently placed behind tightly pulled-back hair. While this exists still in the costume world, Spanish luxury clothes designers do play on the history and culture of Spain to create apparel that is modern, sophisticated and internationally recognised.…

BY ALYSSA MCMURTRY

Illicit tobacco problem is reborn in high tax Spain

In the 1990’s Spain was a by-word for smuggled tobacco, but then the country successfully stifled the black market. Now, with higher taxes, contraband tobacco is back in Spain, and legitimate traders are worried.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

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

NATIONAL governments across the European Union (EU) have been put on warning by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) – they risk legislating to restrict the construction of hypermarkets at their peril. The EU’s senior legal body has declared illegal blocks imposed by the Spanish government on building hypermarkets in Catalonia.…

BY EMMA JACKSON

IN the green clothing and textiles market segment, the requirement to create sustainable and marketable eco-friendly products is becoming increasingly competitive. Out-of-the-box innovation is immensely valuable in such a market where companies seek to balance environmental marketing against increased costs – if green production can be achieved for lower costs, then major labels can and do take notice.…

BY LEE ADENDOORF, ALYSSA MCMURTRY, MAKKI MARSEILLES, and KEITH NUTHALL

GLOBAL olive oil manufacturing is on a roll, with the International Olive Council (IOC) saying 2009-10 world production was 3.02 million tonnes, a season-on-season increase of 354,500 tonnes (+13%). This would be the second best olive oil production year ever, next only to the record of 3.17 million tonnes produced in 2003/04.…

BY FLORENCE LABEDAYS

Michele Norsa is a discreet amicable man who does not seek personal publicity in his role as Chief Executive Officer of Italian luxury clothing company Salvatore Ferragamo. Impeccably-dressed at all times – pin-striped suit, pale blue shirt and red tie, when we met – as one would expect an Italian fashion executive to be, he has ease and approachability.…

BY ALYSSA MCMURTRY

Spain’s tobacco consumers have been hit by a new tough anti-smoking law. The country was formerly a liberal haven for smokers. The national tobacco vendors association is unhappy and so is the bar and café industry – major losses in profits are predicted.…

BY ALYSSA MCMURTRY

However, not everyone is happy about the new law, especially those in the hospitality industry.

"It is awful, it’s the worst thing that has ever happened to my business," said Javier Garcia Simon, owner of Bar Café J.…

BY GARRY PIERRE-PIERRE

HAITI: New university to be built away from earthquake devastation

Garry Pierre-Pierre

A completion date of January 2012 for a new university in Haiti has been announced by the president of the Dominican Republic Leonel Fernández. This new ‘University of Haiti’ will be built in the northern city of Cap Hatïen, costing US dollars USD30 million, fully funded by the neighbouring Dominican Republic’s government and business community.…

BY ALYSSA MCMURTRY

According to the Spanish health ministry, 29.5 per cent of Spaniards over the age of 16 smoke; it also reports that there are around 50,000 smoking-related deaths every year in the country. As a result these public place smoking rules are being celebrated by many, including medical associations and the government, as a way to combat Spain’s high rate of smoking and to protect non-smokers, children and those working in the service industry from the effects of passive smoking.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

WHEN manufacturers generally are feeling the squeeze, maximising the efficiency of packaging systems and their related costs can be an essential part of securing profits. That means increasing demands will be made of conveying, with companies on the look-out for new high-tech solutions.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

WITH sales of biofuels still very much in their nascent stage and concerns rising about the environmental impact of biofuels growing, research and development into ‘second-generation’ biofuels is going ahead apace. And a key element of this work is lowering CO2 emissions from fuel by using waste alternative sources of material for conversion to biofuel.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

The European Commission has proposed a second handout this year for redundant Spanish textile industry workers, drawn from the European Union’s (EU) Globalisation Adjustment Fund. Brussels in August proposed spending Euro EUR2.8 million on former Galician textile workers; now it has asked the European Parliament to authorise another EUR2 million on 350 unemployed textile workers in Alicante province.…

BY NADJA DROST

THE SURGING price of gold has unleashed a gold rush in Colombia, and international criminal networks are using the burgeoning trade in the precious metal to clean the proceeds of crime. In a country with as intimate a connection with the illicit drugs trade and terrorism as Colombia, the risks posed to anti-money laundering authorities are significant.…

BY OSAMA DIAB

THE EGYPTIAN Refining Company (ERC) signed a deal in August to build a US dollar USD3.7 billion second-stage greenfield refinery adjacent to the existing Mostorod refinery 40 kilometres northeast of Cairo. The purpose of the new hydro-cracking and coking refinery is to take its needs of fuel oil from the nearby Mostorod refinery owned by the Cairo Oil Refinery Company, the biggest oil refining company in Egypt contributing 20% to Egypt’s oil refining capacity, and transform it into lighter fuel such as ultra-low sulphur diesel.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

EXPORT development and digital trends dominated discussion at the 30th annual staging of Liber, Spain’s leading book fair, in Barcelona last week.

With Spain still gripped by recession, short-term hopes rest on exports and e-books. Government figures released at Liber showed book exports of all kinds rose 5.4% to EUR482 million (GBP402 million) in 2011.…

BY PAUL RIGG

THE DIRECTOR of Spanish e-book platform Libranda has welcomed an announcement at LIBER, the international book fair for the Spanish speaking world, that Spain’s ruling socialists plan to "super-reduce" e-book IVA [VAT] to 4%. The announcement came from Alfredo Rubalcaba, who is the socialists’ candidate to become prime minister in the upcoming Spanish elections next month.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

A SURGE in e-book reading in Spain coincides with exhibition space being devoted to digital publishing for the first time ever at LIBER, the International Book Fair for the Spanish speaking world, from Wednesday to Friday this week in Madrid.…

BY PAUL RIGG

THE SPANISH book trade is preparing for unexpectedly fast growth in digital sales, LIBER, the international book fair for the Spanish speaking world has been told. Iría Álvarez, trade manager at Santillana, one of Spain’s largest publishers, told delegates at the show in Madrid yesterday (Thursday), "With ebooks expected to take 14% of the US and 7% of the UK market in 2012, the transition is a going to be lot more rapid than we thought."…

BY PAUL RIGG

SPAIN’S top book fair has been told by an American anti-piracy firm that publishers and retailers can protect themselves against illegal downloads, even as digital publishing becomes increasingly dominant.

Yuri Burka, Europe, Middle East and Africa director for Attributor, told LIBER, the international book fair for the Spanish speaking world that acting proactively against illegal downloaders did work: "There is a group of occasional offenders who can be influenced," he said.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE CONSUMER protection authorities of Portugal have been busy with unsafe cosmetics products in September, with five withdrawals reported by European Union consumer safety network RAPEX. Some covered Spanish made products – such as Isdruc ‘Crema despigmentante’ skin lightening cream; plus Tempting ‘Vitamine vital shampoo’ and ‘Live Mask repair’.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

DEFINING a niche drink is an arbitrary matter and what may pass as niche today may well be considered mainstream tomorrow. Flavoured vodka, for instance, had a relatively specialised following in Europe until a few years ago – now it is classified as an official spirit drink under European Union (EU) regulations.…

BY VILLEN ANGANAN

The constant risk of financial crisis and economic malaise in the European Union (EU) is real and may have worrisome consequences for the Mauritius textile sector.

This Indian Ocean island state’s important textile and clothing sector has been dealing with the global recession in 2009, causing a contraction of 2.9% in output through a fall in demand from US and Europe markets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

RETAIL – WINNERS AND LOSERS

WINNERS

H&M

The Sweden-based brand expanded across the world this year, planning to open 220 new stores, mostly in western Europe and the US. Hennes & Mauritz’ (H&M) third quarter sales of SEK26.89bn (US$4bn) showed a sharp 14% increase on the previous quarter.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD, KARRYN MILLER, GARRY PIERRE-PIERRE, KEITH NUTHALL

FOR niche spirits, obscure can be good – and so products made in countries not renowned for their spirits production can gather export market cache. Latin America and the Caribbean are regions where effort by buyers can pay dividends.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

GRUPO Planeta, Spain’s foremost publishing and media group, has started distributing its entire Spanish language catalogue through Apple España’s iBookstore.

e-books from 24 of Planeta’s imprints can now be downloaded via iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and www.itunes.es

Leading Spanish and international authors feature among more than a thousand digital titles.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

SPANISH bookshops suffered an overall 6.2% drop in the value of book sales in 2010, a survey for their national association suggests, as the Madrid book fair LIBER wraps up today (Friday). The decline found by consultants BCF marked a reversal in fortunes after a strong recovery that bucked Spain’s deep economic crisis in 2009.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

SPAIN’s main publishing association has demanded greater political

commitment to defending the book industry against piracy and promoting

reading.

Antoni Comas, president of the Federación de Gremios de Editores de España

(FGEE), the Federation of Spanish Publishers’ Guilds, made the demand at the

October 4 inauguration of the 29th LIBER International Book Fair in Madrid.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

TEXTILE, clothing and textile finishing chemical companies using, manufacturing or importing products to the European Union (EU) have less than 12 weeks to register their use of chemicals with the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). The European Commission has warned missing a November 30 deadline risks a ban on their use of a particular chemical.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CALVIN Klein has lost a European Court of Justice (ECJ) appeal aimed at preventing the trademarking by Spanish company Zafra Marroquineros of the word sign ‘CK CREACIONES KENNYA’ for clothes and leather goods. The US clothing giant claimed "there was a likelihood that consumers would confuse it with its own trademark", namely its famous CK logo.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

THE ORIGINAL inhabitants of Latin America, who dominated the region prior to the Spanish and Portuguese conquests, have often had a rough deal regarding tertiary education. But initiatives are underway to right this wrong. This May the Peruvian National Congress’ Education Commission approved a proposal to create a National Aymara University, the first institute for higher learning in Peru designed to serve so-called ‘indigenous’ peoples of the country.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

THE ORIGINAL inhabitants of Latin America, who dominated the region prior to the Spanish and Portuguese conquests, have often had a rough deal regarding tertiary education. But initiatives are underway to right this wrong. This May the Peruvian National Congress’ Education Commission approved a proposal to create a National Aymara University, the first institute for higher learning in Peru designed to serve so-called ‘indigenous’ peoples of the country.…

BY ZLATKO CONKAS, and KEITH NUTHALL

WHEN imagining Europe’s greenest and most efficient energy systems, the countries of the former Yugoslavia do not readily spring to mind. The simple truth is Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and even Slovenia have a reputation for having ageing energy dirty systems.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has fined 12 producers of animal feed phosphates Euro EUR175million for operating a cartel across Europe, inflating feed prices for livestock producers. Phosphates are widely used in feed, including for cattle, pigs and poultry. The Commission said the cartel covered "most of the EU" in sharing markets and fixing prices.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is considering major financing of up to Euro EUR200 million for upgrading and expanding Gran Canaria Airport, in Spain’s Canary Islands. It is Spain’s fifth largest airport, processing more than 9 million passengers in 2009.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission’s proposals to allow European Union (EU) member states effective control over whether GM food should be grown in their countries have come under fire in the European Parliament. Its environment committee has debated the plans, with Portuguese green MEP Marisa Matias and others raising concerns national bans on products approved for cultivation across the EU may be vulnerable to legal challenges, perhaps at the World Trade Organisation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) panel has refused to set an advisory limit for the intake of sugar by European Union (EU) consumers. EFSA’s panel on dietetic products, nutrition and allergies has concluded in a comprehensive assessment of dietary requirements for EU consumers “there was insufficient evidence to set an upper limit for sugars”.…

BY GERARD O’DWYER

IF there is one region where high standards in fighting money laundering and terrorist finance are expected, it is surely the five Nordic states: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. Notwithstanding the criticism leveled at Iceland’s financial regulators during the credit crunch, all five countries have admirable traditions of public openness, government efficiency and international cooperation, especially amongst themselves.…

BY ANDREW CAVE

ALISON Cooper’s accession to chief executive of Britain’s Imperial Tobacco last month (May) put the UK tobacco industry in an unfamiliar position as the 43-year-old mother-of-two became just the fifth female chief executive in the flagship FTSE100 index.…

BY EMMA JACKSON

IN organised crime these days, it helps to be a linguist. Globalisation has taken organised crime – traditionally centred in one family, one city or one country – and expanded it to an international level, where criminals from all backgrounds, locations and, most importantly, languages can work together – making life even more difficult for often-monolingual law enforcement trying to keep up.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is planning to lend Spanish airport operator ENTE Público de Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aerea (AENA) up to Euro 400 million to help it improve Balearic islands airports. AENA has a Euro 800 million plan to upgrade Palma de Mallorca, Mahón Airport (Minorca), and Ibiza airports, enhancing capacity, safety and service standards.…

BY GEORGE STONE

THE KYOTO Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has made slow progress in Africa, but schemes are slowly getting off the ground, led by programmes in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa.

Under the United Nations-backed CDM process, projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to sustainable development can earn saleable certified emission reduction (CER) credits.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL and EMMA JACKSON

THE EUROPEAN Commission has reported the number of notifications of potentially unsafe automobiles though the European Union (EU) consumer warning system remains high – being the third most common product category receiving withdrawals and sales bans in 2009.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

JUST six years ago, in March 2004, Ireland was the first country in the world to impose an outright ban on smoking in workplaces. A lot of European governments have followed its lead though Ireland (plus the UK and, surprisingly, Turkey) remain the only countries in Europe where the ban is total – that is it applies to smoking in all enclosed public and workplaces without exceptions.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE HUGELY complex European Union (EU) Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) Joint Undertaking (SJU) to modernise and harmonise the European air traffic management system has entered its critical development phase. And so far at least, it appears to have managed this without apparently encountering serious financial, political or technical obstacles.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) research project is developing a polymeric nano-composite designed to frame non-load bearing curtain exterior walls for buildings, replacing the aluminium and steel used in the past.

The FACOMP project, funded with Euro 954,000 from the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), involves British composites manufacturer Exel Composites, which is based in Runcorn, Cheshire, and is part of a Finnish-owned global group.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

INTRODUCTION

There are signs around the world that the textile market is beginning to recover from the global economic crisis, and developing markets will be leading that recovery. Asia is, of course, at the forefront, but many countries in Latin America have also weathered the crisis and have come out in a surprisingly decent position, with their dynamic textile and apparel industries well positioned for future expansion.…

BY MIRIAM ELDER

WHILE the government of the Russian Federation has made real efforts to fight money laundering – as documented recently in the Money Laundering Bulletin – the problem remains rampant in this resource-rich country, according to Russian and international experts.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

THIS summer will see the beginning of the promised introduction of smart metering across the UK. For the utility companies who are taking this step into the future, the key questions centre on interoperability and forthcoming European Union (EU) standards.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MAJOR effort of public intervention to pump-prime European demand for electric vehicles has been proposed by the Spanish government, which currently holds the European Union’s (EU) six month rotating presidency.

Despite the appointment of a permanent president of the EU Council of Ministers (which represents the 27 member states), national governments will still take turns in being the lead country for the EU every six months.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MAJOR effort of public intervention to pump-prime European demand for electric vehicles has been given broad approval by an informal meeting of the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers. It backed a paper tabled by the Spanish government, which currently holds the European Union’s (EU) six month rotating presidency.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MAJOR effort of public intervention to pump-prime European demand for electric vehicles has been given broad approval by an informal meeting of the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers. It backed a paper tabled by the Spanish government, which currently holds the European Union’s (EU) six month rotating presidency.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE and KEITH NUTHALL

SYRIA is such a staple of Middle East political turmoil, it is easy to forget that it is a near neighbour of Europe: less than 200 miles of sea separate it from Cyprus and it borders Turkey, which could be a European Union (EU) member by 2020.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A YEAR of struggle would be the best way to sum up 2009 as far as the global clothing and textile industry is concerned. The depth and severity of the worldwide recession left many clothing and textile companies reeling, even impacting upon China, which had previously been dominating global markets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A SHIFT in European Union (EU) energy policy should become apparent from February 1, when Germany’s Günther Oettinger should become EU energy Commissioner. Replacing Latvia’s Andris Piebalgs for the next five years, the appointment of a German to this increasingly powerful position has been widely touted as shifting EU energy relations towards closer links with Russia.…

BY EMMA JACKSON

TURKISH and Spanish companies are planning to develop equipment able to recycle printed and dyed plastic food containers. Led by Turkish plastics manufacturer Enplast Plastik Kimya Sanayi Ticaret, their researchers plan to use innovative high performance filters and coupling agents to separate coatings from plastic to create high value-added waste products.…

BY EMMA JACKSON

TURKISH and Spanish companies are planning to research recycling painted plastics such as food containers. Led by Turkish plastics manufacturer Enplast Plastik Kimya Sanayi Ticaret, their researchers plan to use innovative high performance filters and coupling agents to separate paints from plastic to create high value-added waste products.…

BY LEE ADENDORFF, ERIC LYMAN and KEITH NUTHALL

INTRODUCTION

THE ITALIAN wine industry hit rock bottom a generation ago, when thousands of bottles of Italian wine were found laced with deadly levels of methanol, a key ingredient in antifreeze that had been used to raise the alcohol content of the wine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A HOPEFUL sign that European Union (EU) and American energy policies could become more complimentary in the future has come with the launch of a new EU-US Energy Council in Washington. It will formalise transatlantic discussions on strategic energy issues such as security of supply and developing low carbon energy sources.…

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 now handed over Euro 3.3 million from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) to the Spanish government to help retrain 1,100 workers in the Catalonian textiles sector. The money will be targeted at 1,720 workers made redundant recently from textile firms in Catalonia, who have shed 33% of their jobs in the past four years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed letting fishing crews from Germany, France, Poland and Spain avoid detailed cod catch controls and potentially time-consuming statistical declarations for catches in the North Sea and off western Scotland. Brussels wants European Union (EU) ministers to allow selected groups of vessels to avoid following special fishing effort rules imposed by the EU’s 2008 regulation 1342/2008 on cod stock conservation.…

BY BRENDAN DE BEER and CARRIE-MARIE BRATLEY

"THIS is one of the most serious situations we have ever been faced with," admitted António Mousinho, chairman of Portugal’s National Haulage Association (ANTRAM) at the beginning of October.

As with other industries in these economically turbulent times, the haulage industry in Portugal and its trade unions and professional associations are becoming increasingly obsessed with simple economic survival.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AS Barack Obama wrestles with the challenge of pushing healthcare reform through the US Congress, he could create political capital by highlighting the need to fight fraud in the sector. Keith Nuthall reports.

IT is something of a sacred cow.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

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

BY SHABTAI GOLD

THE CREW over at Top Gear, the BBC petrol-lovers show, recently declared that the Switzerland part of the Alpine mountain range has some of the best roads in the world for driving. But they were in top sports cars, costing a fortune and hardly designed for bringing farmers’ produce to the supermarkets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN research project has developed cosmetics products from German wine-making waste. German chemical analysis company Spectral Service and Spanish natural cosmetics company Alfaverde Productos Naturales gently dried fermentation leftovers into powders containing many wine nutrients. These include proteins, B vitamins, minerals and polyphenols, preventing heart or circulation diseases.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

WINE bottle labels that contain colour and hue combinations, such as brown, yellow, black and green, on rectangular and hexagonal patterns are most appealing to consumers according to new research published by the American Association of Wine Economists.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SPECIAL marketing protection has been announced by the European Commission for three more traditional products: an Italian salami – ‘Ciauscolo’; a Spanish bread ‘Pan de Cruz de Ciudad Real’ and a Portuguese sweet potato – ‘Batata doce de Aljezur’.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

RASFF, the European Union’s (EU) food safety alert service, has warned of unauthorized usage of E 210 – benzoic acid in certain chocolate and strawberry syrup manufactured in Spain. The service has also warned food safety officials have discovered excess content of E 200 – sorbic acid in certain Spanish apricot jam consignments.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is planning to lend Euro 100 million to Spanish airport operator Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea (AENA) to improve two Canary Islands airports. The money would meet half the projected costs of further planned expansion of Fuerteventura and Tenerife North airports.…

BY MARK ROWE

THE ADDED value created by Spain’s textile and clothing sector will fall by 8.8% in 2009, according to forecaster Business Monitor International (BMI). Currently, ranks Spain’s entire textile industry as 13^th in the world in terms of textile and clothing manufacturing value added, which BMI priced at US$12.45 billion in 2008.

The recession also appears to be casting a medium-term shadow over the sector, with textile and clothing value (T&C) added also falling by 3.3% in 2010, reflecting difficult international economic conditions, said BMI: “We see a recovery beginning to set in only from 2012, with growth of 0.2%,” said a spokesman. “The industry’s trade performance will also reflect the especially difficult international economic situation. This year [Spanish] T&C exports will fall 7.8% to US$9.74 billion, with imports down 3.2% to US$17.76 billion. As a result there will be a T&C trade deficit of US$8.01 billion. The reason is a fast shrinking domestic market: Euromonitor estimates that the resulting contraction in the Spanish textile and clothing industry will cause make it shed up to 30% of its workforce over the next five or six years.

ENDS

By David Haworth

After a decade as the European Union’s (EU) foreign policy supremo, Javier Solana is to step down this autumn – sadly for him – he could not wait long enough for the creation of the world’s first multinational ‘foreign minister’ post.…

BY MARK ROWE, KEITH NUTHALL and LEAH GERMAIN

PACO Rabanne, Balenciaga and Domínguez are major Spanish figures in the global fashion world, as known for quality off-the-peg styling, but they have their roots in the country’s haute couture tradition.

For labels are not overwhelmingly dominant in Spain’s luxury clothing sector – this is a country where the talents of the sastre (tailor) and modista (dressmaker) are still highly valued.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SPANISH government will have to repay Euro 113.4 million in European Union (EU) flax production subsidies which the European Commission has claimed were distributed without proper financial controls. Indeed, EU anti-fraud unit OLAF has concluded that a "very significant amount of EU subsidies for flax production [in Spain] had been wrongly disbursed".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AMERICAN cosmetics giant Procter & Gamble has failed to persuade the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to block the registration of a trademark proposed by a Spanish competitor. Laboratorios Alcala Farma wants European Union trademark rights to a disc-and-two-strikes sign, for cosmetics, perfumes and pharmaceuticals, which could be read ‘Oli’.…

BY MARK ROWE

THE ADDED value created by Spain’s textile and clothing sector will fall by 8.8% in 2009, according to forecaster Business Monitor International (BMI). Currently, ranks Spain’s entire textile industry as 13th in the world in terms of textile and clothing manufacturing value added, which BMI priced at US$12.45 billion in 2008.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have approved lifting special cod conservation administrative controls from 88 Spanish boats fishing for hake with bottom trawls off the west of Scotland. The move is permitted under the EU’s (EC) No 1342/2008 regulation for long-term cod controls, which generally insists on fishing boats taking special care to note and control cod bycatches in conservation areas.…

BY PHILIPPA JONES, in Paris; LEE ADENDORFF, in Lucca, Italy; KARRYN MILLER, in Tokyo; and LUCY JONES, in Dallas

IT almost seems commonsense to say that an industry providing such a human product as clothing has to take account of cultural sensibilities in target markets.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

THE EURO-MASHREQ gas pipeline that runs 1,200 kilometers from Egypt through Jordan and Syria to Turkey has taken 20 years to come to fruition. The end is in sight however, with the project awaiting a final tender for the last leg through northern Syria.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

LAID off auto workers in Spain are to receive assistance from the European Union (EU) after administrative problems holding up the handout appear to have been resolved.

The European Commission announced today (June 22) it had paid Euro 2.7 million from the European Globalisation adjustment Fund (EGF) to Spain.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SPANISH government has lost an attempt at the European Court of Justice to recoup Euro 58,315 the European Commission had effectively docked from European Union (EU) grants for improving the production of honey in Spain. Brussels had classified this money as VAT on the overall grant, and so could not be financed by the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PERFUME-MAKER Calvin Klein has lost an attempt at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to prevent a Spanish company gaining European Union (EU) rights to a trademark because it uses the ‘CK’ initials in its name.

Klein opposed Zafra Marroquineros SL registering with the EU trademark regulator the mark CK CREACIONES KENNYA for clothes and leather goods, also made by the US giant.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CALVIN Klein has lost an attempt at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to prevent a Spanish company gaining European Union (EU) rights to a trademark.

CK has opposed Zafra Marroquineros SL registering with the EU trademark regulator the mark CK CREACIONES KENNYA for clothes and leather goods.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A REVISED food and drink trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and Switzerland will provide wines and spirits from the 12 countries joining the EU since 2004 with key geographical indication protection in key Swiss export markets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IN a battle between two drinks companies with the same name, a Guadeloupe rum-maker has won the right to trademark its moniker – Montebello – fighting off a challenge from a namesake Spanish wine company. The European Court of Justice Court of First Instance has ruled Montebello, of Petit-Bourg, on the French Caribbean island, has European Union trademark rights, dismissing arguments that consumers could be confused with wines sold by challenger Bodegas Montebello, of Montilla, Spain.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE PORTUGUESE and Spanish knitwear sectors are to benefit from special government programmes designed to support clothing producers in these countries withstand the recession, given these countries regard the sector as having strategic importance. The Portuguese government has announced a major Euro 850 million plan to boost its struggling clothing sector, with Euro 600 million being lavished on export credit insurance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE PLANNED acquisition of Spanish company sugar and bakery ingredient company Azucarera Ebro S.L. by Britain’s Associated British Food Plc, owner of British Sugar, has been approved by the European Commission. It concluded there are no serious competition issues associated with this international deal, despite there being some overlap by the companies in sugar sales to Spain and Portugal.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, LEAH GERMAIN and MONICA DOBIE

MAYBE the best sign that renewable energies have hit the mainstream is that they now have their very own international organisation: the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Launched in Bonn, Germany, this January, with the support of 76 countries, including its host nation, Spain, Italy, France and Sweden, the roster of signatory nations has since been swollen by India and Belarus.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SPANISH textile and clothing dying sector will benefit from a Euro 800 million subsidy plan helping it and its customers withstand the recession. The European Commission has granted approval for the scheme as the European Union’s (EU) gatekeeper for national subsidies under the EU’s state aid regime, which has been significantly liberalised since the onset of the recession.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH

ONE day before a Sunday European Union (EU) emergency summit on the global recession, the French government made a U-turn on its proposed Euro 6.5 billion aid plan for Renault and Peugeot-Citroen, dropping its previous conditions relating to the factories’ locations and obliging manufacturers to favour French suppliers when making purchases.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SPANISH government will spend Euro 1.69 million from a European Union (EU) European Globalisation adjustment Fund (EGF) on helping workers made redundant from just two auto-components manufacturer ex-employees, despite originally intending to spread the cash between 12 parts companies.…

By Alan Osborn

Each of the 27 member states of the European Union has the right to set the minimum level of qualification necessary to guarantee the quality of professional services within their territory, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled.…

BY MARK GODFREY

THOUGH its top trading partners continue to stick with the fair value or mark to market principle set by the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), China remains unwilling to embrace the principle. Though Beijing, keen to nurture its companies into global corporate champions, has been bringing its Accounting Standards for Business Enterprises (ASBE) closer to the IFRS it won’t require listed firms to use the fair value approach – “not for the foreseeable future,” Dickson Leung, partner at the Beijing offices of Lehman Brown has told Accountancy Age.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

COLLAPSING demand in the European Union’s (EU) auto industry is piling so much pressure on its national governments to save their own manufacturers one casualty could be the EU’s laws restricting public subsidies.
These ‘state aid’ rules have long been a lynchpin of EU membership.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

THE MIDDLE East and North Africa region (that economists like to award the acronym ‘MENA’) consumes 6% of the global vegetable oil market and sucks in 15% of global imports, with strong growth across the board on the back of rising per capita GDP and a burgeoning population.…

BY LARS RUGAARD

CASH shortages, competition from abroad and cost rises threaten to remove one of every three of Denmark’s roughly 35,000 lorry drivers from their trade this year, haulage experts are warning. Speaking to Commercial Motor, a Danish truck driver sitting on the bunk of his Volvo truck sums up his industry’s gloom in one sentence: "Earlier things were better".…

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

AN ALLIANCE between French and Spanish drinks producers is to share Euro 450,000 in marketing subsidies from the European Commission over three years. The money comes in Brussels’ latest announcement of marketing assistance to sell European Union (EU)-made drinks and food outside the EU.…

BY PAUL RIGG

ROBBERIES, competition from immigrants and the state of the economy are the issues of most pressing concern for Spanish hauliers, according to drivers interviewed in truck stops on the outskirts of Madrid by Commercial Motor.

"I woke up with my kidneys and head hurting like I’d drunk a bottle of whisky," said Elias Calyo, 46, from Andalucia in the south of Spain.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs will use his last year in office to push for the creation of an EU-wide energy regulator with real power. Speaking while the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers debate a hybrid regulatory system for EU energy producers, Piebalgs has said he wants a strong EU regulator to control Europe’s energy giants.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is taking legal action against three European Union (EU) countries over alleged breaches of EU water legislation. It will ask the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to impose potentially massive daily recurring fines of Euro 1,000s against Greece for breaking the EU urban waste water directive.…

BY ANDREW CAVE and KARRYN MILLER

FACING a looming energy crisis, the battle to produce lithium ion batteries to power hybrid and battery cars is heating up. Germany’s Robert Bosch and Samsung of South Korea recently formed a joint venture SB LiMotive Co to compete with the likes of BorgWarner, Johnson Controls, TRW and Continental.…

By Monica Dobie

A new explosives scanner, quick to use and able to probe tiny cracks, has won a European research award. The technology has been developed in a Euro 760,000 project by the Czech Republic Academy of Sciences; the Slovak Technical University, Bratislava; Czech high-tech company RS Dynamics with Spanish engineering company SENER Ingenieria y Sistemas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MAN-MADE ecological disaster that almost destroyed a fishing industry is now being reversed. The northern Aral Sea – once a shallow saline remnant – is now growing again, boosting fish production. Excess irrigation shrank central Asia’s Aral Sea by 70% from 1960 to 2004, and its level dropped about 20 metres, splitting it in two in 1990: a small Northern Aral Sea entirely within Kazakhstan and a large Southern Aral Sea, shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CONTINENTAL European countries have started making major pushes to increase the amount of electric cars in operation. The initiatives mirror efforts by the UK government, with prime minister Gordon Brown recently promising GBPounds 90 million to support the development of electric, hybrid and other alternative fuel vehicles.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A COMPANY importing quality cigars from Nicaragua has been launched in Toronto, Canada. Former investment bank researcher Markus Raty has become president of Mombacho Cigars, which is backed by the president of independent beer-maker Steam Whistle Breweries Co – Cameron Heaps.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

IMPERIAL Tobacco has announced the appointment of Berge Setrakian as a non-executive director. Mr Setrakian, 59, is a senior partner in the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP and is currently a non-executive director of Altadis SA, which is now owned by Imperial, a position he has held since May 2004.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has now formally opened its agency coordinating the policing of fishing rules in its member states’ fishing fleets, amidst a call for it to receive more powers. At a formal launch ceremony for the Community Fisheries Control Agency (CFCA) it its base in Vigo, Spain, a senior Spanish socialist MEP Rosa Miguélez Ramos said she hoped that "unlike previous [EU] agencies, it will extend its remit and its tasks".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has continued this month’s surge in decisions to grant traditionally made European food products protection by adding them to the European Union’s (EU) protected geographical indication lists. It has announced protection for six more products, preventing them from being copied by food manufacturers based outside the regions where they are traditionally produced and manufactured.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has granted 18 traditionally made European Union (EU) food products protection by adding them to EU geographical indication lists, preventing them from being copied by food manufacturers outside these products’ home regions. These include Spanish marzipan ‘Mazapán de Toledo’; Portuguese smoked sausage ‘Alheira de Vinhais’; and Slovenská parenica, a smoked Slovak sheep milk cheese.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A NEW explosives scanner, quick to use and able to probe tiny cracks, has won a European research award. The technology has been developed in a Euro 760,000 project by Czech high-tech company RS Dynamics with Spanish engineering company SENER Ingenieria y Sistemas.…

BY SUZANNE KOELEGA and JUHEL BROWNE

"CASINOS are an important part of the development of the Caribbean tourist sector, yet they hold a particular attraction to money launderers. Casinos provide the venues for large flows of cash, which launderers can utilise to disguise the true origins of their criminal proceeds."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

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

BY PAUL RIGG, in Madrid

THE DOMINANT event in the Spanish Tobacco Market in 2008 has been Imperial Tobacco’s takeover of the Franco-Spanish company Altadis. Following a series of rebuffed bids in 2007, the widely predicted buyout was finalised on January 30, 2008.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

GERMANY’S largest vineyard has been ordered by the European Commission to repay Euro 541,859 in illegal subsidies paid by its owner – the regional government of Hesse. Following a detailed investigation, Brussels has concluded that the writing off of losses made by Hessische Staatsweingüter until December 2002 broke European Union (EU) state aid rules and so must be repaid, with interest.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

GERMANY’S largest vineyard has been ordered by the European Commission to repay Euro 541,859 in illegal subsidies paid by its owner – the regional government of Hesse. Meanwhile, major Spain wine producer J. Garcia Carrion La Mancha may have to repay Euro 14.5 million in subsidies from the Spanish state for improving plant – Brussels is investigating the handout.…

BY LIZ HALL, in Alicante

SPAIN is no stranger to the threat of terrorism. For decades its soil has been the scene of terrorism at the hands of Basque independence group ETA. Increasingly, however, the threat from ETA appears to being outweighed by that of terrorist activity from Islamic extremists.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD, in Caracas

LATIN AMERICA has long been notorious for its high levels of corruption, especially through money laundering, bribery and the illicit drug trade. And although the recent years of relative stability and democratisation in the region have brought economic progress, this has also widened the opportunities for fraudulent activities and fuelled an increasing sophistication by which they are performed.…

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.…

BY LEE ADENDORFF, in Lucca, Italy

OF the 3,000 students who will graduate from fashion school this year in the UK, only 500 will find jobs in the clothing and textile sector. They may be highly creative and excellent designers, but this is not always what the industry wants: many fashion producers say British graduates are ill-prepared to compete and adapt to a workplace characterised by overseas manufacturing bases, highly computerised environments and complex logistical production scenarios.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

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

BY KEITH NUTHALL

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

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is considering launching a sectoral competition probe into whether price-fixing by retailers is driving up already high food prices in Europe. The admission came from an unusual source – European Union (EU) monetary affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia – not EU competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PETROL and diesel in Spain could become cheaper by the European Commission threatening legal action to force the abolition of the Spanish ‘Impuesto sobre las ventas minoristas de determinados hidrocarburos’ motor fuel tax. This is charged in addition to standard excise duty and rates are set by regional governments.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A DEAL has been struck at the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers over unbundling of gas (and electricity) networks, which will allow formal ownership of production and distribution operations.

However, this compromise option will insist on transmission systems being managed by an independent operator.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MAJOR Spanish pigmeat processing company may have to repay Euro 15.1 million in government aid it received for improving its manufacturing plants in Spain. El Pozo Alimentacion, which makes ham, sausages, paté and other meat products, is now the focus of a European Commission investigation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ETHIOPIA COMMODITY EXCHANGE OPENS

ETHIOPIA has opened a commodity exchange, designed to bring order to the country’s often chaotic food markets. Their informality effectively forces farmers to sell locally to traders they know and trust. This prevents commodities moving from regions where there is abundance to those where there are shortages, intensifying the risk of famine and for prices to plummet in districts with a production glut.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SPANISH government has been ordered to repay Euro 54.9 million in European Union (EU) subsidies after the European Commission concluded it had wasted the money on unauthorised planting of vineyards in 2003 and 2004. The expansion broke EU planting controls designed to contract Europe’s wine sector into a commercially viable sector focused on quality wines, rather than churning out cheap wine that ends up in compulsory distillation programmes.…

By Keith Nuthall and Monica Dobie

Universities and colleges are constantly working with business and industry to undertake commercially valuable research. University World News here again features a selection of these cutting edge developments in its business pages.

*The University of Latvia’s Institute of Polymer Mechanics Eureka has helped create construction bricks with domestic waste polymers usually considered too varied or dirty to be recycled.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

NEARLY a year after Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president, the widely expected Thatcherite revolution in France he was supposed to bring about has still to arrive. He talked boldly during his election campaign of radical labour market reforms including an end to France’s rigid employment practices, overhaul of the 35-hour working week and at least a start at dismantling the hugely expensive pensions and other perks enjoyed by transport and utility workers.…

By Alan Osborn

The European Court of Justice has found that Spain broke EU regulations by failing to withdraw a number of conditions it had imposed on the acquisition of the Spanish energy company Endesa by the German company E.ON which was launched in February 2006.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SLOVENIAN government has tabled compromise proposals to break the current political logjam at the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers over gas supply unbundling. As current EU president, Slovenia has suggested for instance that some joint ownership of energy producing and transmission utilities could occur if there were "additional safeguards" preventing conflicts of interest, and guaranteeing the "structural independence of decision making" by distribution operators.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) research network Eureka has helped create bricks with domestic waste polymers usually considered too varied or dirty to be recycled. It has worked with the Latvian Technological Centre; the Institute of Polymer Mechanics, the University of Latvia; and Spanish company Hormigones Uniland to mix waste polymers with other materials to make construction products.…

BY RACHEL JONES, in Caracas

AS one of South America’s largest economies and the world’s leading

exporter of soy and sunflower oil, Argentina experienced a GDP growth rate

of 8.4 percent in 2006 and 7.9 percent a year earlier, according to the US

Energy and Information Administration.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

WOMEN use cigarettes to relieve stress as an appetite suppressant and to facilitate social and sexual interaction with men, a study from the University of Granada, Spain, has concluded. Researchers examined the reasons for the increased rate of women smokers in the last 50 years in Spanish society.…

BY LUCY JONES, in Dallas; ALAN OSBORN, in London; KARRYN CARTELLE, in Tokyo; BILL CORCORAN, in Johannesburg; PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut; RACHEL JONES, in Caracas; MARK ROWE; and KEITH NUTHALL

WITH the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round being slow to proceed since its 2001 launch – and only this year approaching something resembling and end game – free traders wanting to encourage global commerce have looked to bilateral and regional trade deals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has declared illegal under European Union (EU) law Spanish regulations that limit the voting rights of publicly-owned organisations on energy utilities in Spain. These rules have been criticised by the European Commission for preventing potential takeovers by foreign companies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

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

BY FIDELMA COOK, PAUL COCHRANE and KEITH NUTHALL

SONATRACH, Algeria’s national oil and gas company, has made no secret to its determination to strengthen its position in Europe, which already accounts for around 60% of Algeria’s export earnings….the bulk of which is in gas.…

BY LIZ HALL, in Alicante

AS an Alicante-based journalist travelling frequently to and from London, I have found myself increasingly dreading such journeys in recent years. At Alicante´s El Altet airport, parking has tended to be nigh-on impossible, the small check-in area barely contained the crowds and security seemed somewhat hit and miss.…

BY PAUL RIGG, in Madrid

KEN Follett’s new book ‘World Without End’ might perhaps be more appropriately entitled ‘Success Without End’ given its festive sales in Spain. Already a top bestseller in America, Australia and the UK (among other countries), its Spanish language release between December 28-29 galvanised an otherwise fairly ordinary seasonal trade.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) official coordinator for promoting the development of a high voltage connection between France and Spain has outlined four questions about the project that he wants answered by June. Mario Monti, a former EU competition commissioner, has said in a report that a continued failure by the French and Spanish governments to provide firm answers has long delayed this key capacity project.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE NEXT twelve months – say to Easter 2009 – could prove of fundamental significance for the development of European Union (EU) energy policy on several fronts. In January this year, the European Commission published its long-awaited proposals on renewable energies and CO2 saving, and history may well judge this to be the moment when the EU turned decisively green.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A FISHING access deal with Mauritania – hailed by the European Commission as "the most important fisheries agreement concluded by the EU with a third country" – could be renegotiated because European fishermen have shunned its opportunities. The Commission has now asked EU ministers for permission to renegotiate the two year deal, which would otherwise have been renewed largely unchanged next August (2008).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

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

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced England’s Staffordshire cheese, Spanish cauliflower Coliflor de Calahorra; German grated horseradish Bayerischer Meerrettich and Bayerischer Kren; and German table carp Holsteiner Karpfen have been granted geographical indication protection within the European Union (EU).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SPANISH wine makers will receive the most money – Euro 162 million – for improving their vineyards, in the latest tranche of European Union (EU) grants earmarked for this purpose.

The European Commission will spend Euro 510 million across the EU on viticulture reform in 2007/8, with money allotted for variety conversion, relocation of vineyards and improvements to vineyard management techniques.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SPANISH wine makers will receive the most money – Euro 162 million – for improving their vineyards, in the latest European Union (EU) grants for this purpose. The European Commission will spend Euro 510 million across the EU on viticulture reform in 2007/8, for variety conversion, vineyard relocation and management improvements.…

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 ALAN OSBORN

THE EUROPEAN Commission’s decision to appoint ‘project co-ordinators’ to try to spark movement in four long-stalled cross-border energy projects in the European Union (EU) has drawn widespread cynicism from many in the industry. However, here and there, there is an admission that these high-level trouble-shooters might just get results where so many others have failed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has formally announced today (15-10) that England’s Staffordshire cheese, as well as traditional vegetable products from Germany and Spain, plus a German fish product, have been granted geographical indication protection within the European Union (EU).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

HUMAN nature’s tendency to let sleeping dogs lie means that international initiatives to deal with chronic problems often only come to fruition after a major disaster. And such was the case with the formation of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA).…

BY MATTHEW BRACE

THE BIG question with solar energy is whether it will become sufficiently profitable for major utilities to provide comprehensive services. After all, solar energy is more abundant than all other renewable resources; it’s free and it can be harnessed almost anywhere in the world.…

BY RACHEL JONES, in Caracas

THE OSCAR Machado Zuloaga Airport (SVCS), (NOTE – SPELLING IS CORRECT) also known as the Caracas Airport, sits on a mesa (flat-topped hill) in Charallave, a 45-minute drive from Venezuela’s capital of Caracas. The privately owned airport, flanked by manicured boulevards, provides a tranquil home for about 500 small planes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced funding to help meat industry organisations promote sales of their products within the European Union (EU). The money will be matched by relevant national governments and by private sources. Italy will benefit the most: the Commission is to spend Euro 1.75 million over three years promoting quality beef and mutton from Italy’s San Daniele and Grana Padano regions; and Euro 2 million promoting over three years the same products from Italy’s Alpine regions, such as the Alto Adige.…

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

SPANISH and Italian fishing businesses and regulators have been blasted by the European Commission for condoning or participated in unauthorised or illegal fishing practices. In the latest statistical report on such problems, which compared national fleets during 2005, the Commission notes that the number of cases was at all time high – 10,443 across the EU, compared with 9,660 in 2004.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MORE than a fifth of European Union (EU) motorists would not use their cars any less, even if dramatic improvements were made to local public transport systems, a European Commission-funded opinion poll has revealed. Conducted by pollsters Gallup amongst 25,767 people across the EU, the survey said 22% of those favouring cars over other transport means would remain loyal to their vehicles come what may.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MORE than a fifth (22%) of European Union (EU) motorists would not use their cars any less, even if dramatic improvements were made to local public transport systems, a European Commission-funded opinion poll has revealed. Conducted by pollsters Gallup amongst 25,767 people across the EU, the survey said British drivers are around the European average in this regard – at 19%.…

BY CHRISTOPHER JONES, in Brussels
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) headline-grabbing proposals to reduce EU carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 could prove overly ambitious, according to the new secretary general of Eurelectric, the industry association representing the electricity industry at the EU level.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has signed another fishing access deal with a weak African state – this time with west Africa’s Guinea Bissau, which has recently been criticised for being a staging point for Europe-bound illegal narcotics from south America.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EURO 35 million Catalonia regional government loan to Spanish confectionary producer Chupa Chups was legal under European Union state aid laws, the European Commission has concluded. After an inquiry, it concluded just Euro 900,000 subsidies were illegal aid, ordering a repayment of only Euro 100,000.…

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 CHRISTOPHER JONES, in Brussels

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) headline-grabbing proposals to reduce EU carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 could prove overly ambitious, according to the new secretary general of Eurelectric, the industry association representing the electricity industry at the EU level.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EURO 35 million Catalonia regional government loan to Spanish confectionary producer Chupa Chups was legal under European Union state aid laws, the European Commission has concluded. After an inquiry, it concluded just Euro 900,000 subsidies were illegal aid, ordering a repayment of only Euro 100,000.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has signed another fishing access deal with a weak African state – this time with west Africa’s Guinea Bissau, which has recently been criticised for being a staging point for Europe-bound illegal narcotics from south America.…

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
SPANISH government claims that European Union (EU) Common Fisheries Policy conservation and monitoring controls agreed in 2003 were illegal because its representatives were not invited to a key committee meeting in the Spanish language have been rejected by the European Court of Justice.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
ALTERNATIVE green energy is taking a big step forward in Europe, with the introduction of the European Union’s (EU) first commercial concentrating solar power (CSP) plant. The 11 megawatt facility, near Seville in Spain, will produce electricity using more than 600 movable mirrors which follow and concentrate the sun’s rays.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EURO 35 million Catalonia regional government loan to Spanish confectionary producer Chupa Chups was legal under European Union state aid laws, the European Commission has concluded. However, after an investigation into public support of the company, it concluded Euro 900,000 subsidies were illegal aid, ordering a repayment of Euro 100,000.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE POWER generation industry has always been a globalised business, especially regarding the manufacture of equipment, but with the opening of national electricity markets, especially in Europe, it has become increasingly international. As a result, the need for common standards and practices, relevant to the industry, its suppliers and its customers is becoming more and more important.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE FRENCH tobacco market is astir and it’s quite possible that such iconic brands as Gitanes and Gauloise, part of the Franco-Spanish Altardis group with some 30% of the French cigarette market, will no longer be independently owned by the year-end.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ANOTHER attempt by the Spanish government to force the European Union (EU) into giving it new fishing rights in the North Sea and the Baltic has been slapped down by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Madrid for a third time now, has claimed unfair treatment from the EU Council of Ministers for ignoring its plea for fishing rights based on special transitional rights to these waters from 1996 to 2002, which were replaced by closely restricted access afterwards.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPAIN is being taken to the European Court of Justice by the European Commission, which is seeking an order outlawing Spanish regulations insisting foods containing plant extracts such as guaraná, ginseng, espirulina and passiflore be authorised as medicines.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has censured the Spanish government for failing to ensure the sewage treatment systems of holiday resorts Sueca and La Ribera, in Valencia province, comply with the European Union urban waste water directive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPAIN is being taken to the European Court of Justice by the European Commission, which is seeking an order outlawing Spanish regulations insisting foods containing plant extracts such as guaraná, ginseng, espirulina and passiflore be authorised as medicines.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPAIN is being taken to the European Court of Justice by the European Commission over Spanish regulations insisting foods containing plant extracts such as guaraná, ginseng, espirulina and passiflore be authorised as medicines. Applications are long and complex process, breaking European Union free trade rules alleges Brussels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPAIN’S wine-making province La Rioja is heading a Spanish team tasked with helping the Serbia agriculture ministry resurrect a once thriving local wine industry. The European Agency for Reconstruction-managed Euro 1.4 million project will improve quality assurance and vineyard registration and classification.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) member states have given a cool reception to the European Commission’s January energy package on forging a tough EU-wide programme of boosting energy capacity in Europe. At a special EU Council of Ministers meeting, a majority of governments, including the UK, opposed a proposed binding 2020 target of sourcing 20% of all energy consumption from renewable sources.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) advocate general has suggested in a clothing case, that an established trademark holder’s right to prevent other companies using their protected brand name is limited. Eleanor Sharpston said consumers and clients must confuse a French clothing company Céline SA with another French clothing company Céline Sàrl to prevent the latter using the name.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has warned Spain it may ask the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to levy heavy daily recurring funds if it continues to ignore an ECJ ruling that it reduces pollution in shellfish waters in the Ría de Vigo, Galicia.…

BY MARK ROWE

IN-FLIGHT catering has experienced a turbulent ride in recent years. Self-evidently, this sub-sector of the food industry’s fortunes are inextricably linked to those of the aviation industry and, put simply, fewer passengers, means fewer food sales.

Yet as the aviation market has recovered in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York in 2001, in-flight caterers have seen an upturn in business – and new demands, many of which feed into additional demands and opportunities for food manufacturers, who, along with processors and cooks have to be eclectic and extremely versatile.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THINK of Latin American mines, and political and industrial
relations instability springs to mind. Pictures of poncho’d Bolivian Amerindians demonstrating against poor conditions,
hurling rocks at robocops armed to the teeth….

The truth is that the mining industry often gets a bad rap in Latin America and, to be honest, it has often been run poorly, especially in environmental terms.…

BY MARK ROWE

DESPITE devastating hailstorms along Italy’s Adriatic Coast and concerns over damage from the olive fly, the forecast for the olive oil market for the 2006 season is positive, according to the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC).

"All the information available predicts a good harvest for this season" said a spokesman for the IOOC.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

MOROCCO’S US$1.37 billion tobacco market is undergoing a transformation following Altadis’ full buyout of the country’s tobacco monopoly earlier this year, with the distribution process to be overhauled and leaf production increased and diversified away from dark tobacco.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared France gas and petroleum company Total’s takeover of Spain-based gas, oil and petrochemical production firm Compañía Española de Petróleos (Cepsa), which focuses on the Spanish and Portuguese markets. Brussels fast-tracked the merger approval, as it considers the deal does not pose competition problems for the European Union’s energy sector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel has highlighted yet another decision to distil quality European wine as evidence of the need to reform the EU’s antiquated wine market system. Brussels has ordered that up to 185,000 hl of quality Spanish wine should go into subsidised crisis distillation, at a fixed price of Euro 3 per percentage alcohol content per hl of distilled wine.…

BY LIZ HALL

SIX years ago, government representatives from nine South American countries gathered in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, to sign a document of great importance to those concerned with fighting money-laundering (ML) and terrorism financing (TF).

On December 8, 2000, representatives of the governments of the following countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay, signed the Founding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) formally establishing GAFISUD, a regional body modelled on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has intervened in detailed debates over the restoration of North Sea plaice and sole stocks, accusing the European Commission of failing to listen to expertise within the fishing industry. In a comprehensive set of amendments to Brussels’ proposed conservation plan, the parliament has claimed the Commission is guilty of "totally ignoring the North Sea Regional Advisory Council (NSRAC)", and in this way "has missed an opportunity to generate support for its own policy", instead indulging in top-down policy dictates that were supposed to be a thing of the past.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has unveiled plans to lend up to Euro 727.50 million to build up to 30 wind farms in Spain, with a combined capacity of around 900 MWe. These medium and large scale wind farms would be set up this year and next in economically hard pressed areas across Spain, classed by the European Union (EU) as ‘Objective 1’ and so eligible for various EU regional aid programmes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is taking legal action against five member states for failing to comply with a range of accounting-related European Union (EU) laws. Acting in its official role as guardian of EU treaties and legislation, these include:

*Taking Austria to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failing to implement a 2000 directive on financial transparency regarding transactions between member states and other public bodies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is offering a comprehensive European Union (EU) free-trade deal to Russia, to secure cheaper and more reliable gas and oil supplies. Commission president José Manuel Barroso said the EU will offer this to Russia once it has joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO), maybe this year.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

A SPANISH-made body lightening lotion called NIUMA has been withdrawn from sale in Germany because its ingredients include the potentially harmful substance hydroquinone (at a proportion of 5.7 %; +/- 0.1 %). The European Commission’s RAPEX consumer-alert service reported there had been a "voluntary withdrawal from the market", with "information/warnings displayed" at retail stores.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

A POLITICAL struggle has broken out at the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers between EU olive oil importing and exporting countries over the current level import tariffs for the product. On one side is a group led by Sweden, supported by Britain, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Lithuania, complaining about what they call "high market prices of olive oil in the EU and low levels of stocks".…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has lowered the allowable levels of nitrates and nitrites added to meat products sold in the EU, boosting consumer health safety. Certain traditional products, such as certain cured Spanish and German meats will have special exemptions however, because the new limits would have prevented their manufacture

ENDS…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FOOD, biotechnology and agriculture research projects will command budgets of Euro 1.9 billion from 2007-13 under a draft rewritten European Union (EU) seventh framework programme (FP7). Other targeted research budgets under the Euro 54.5 billion scheme proposed by the European Commission of potential relevance to the food sector include Euro 5.9 billion on health, Euro 1.8 million on environmental research, plus Euro 3.4 billion on nanotechnology, materials, and manufacturing.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

LEGAL action launched by the European Commission against the French and Spanish governments could force them to slash motorway toll-reductions available to frequent users of these roads. The Commission has sent both administrations final warning letters saying it may take them to the European Court of Justice, because these reductions are so steep (up to 50% in Spain and 30% in France), they discriminate against occasional motorway users.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has approved seven new additives as safe to use in EU foodstuffs: erythritol, soybean hemicellulose, ethyl cellulose, hexylresorcinol, tertiary butyl hydroquinone (TBHQ), pullulan, and starch aluminium octenyl succinate. It has also lowered the allowable levels of nitrates and nitrites added to meat products sold in the EU, boosting consumer health safety, except for certain traditional products, such as some cured Spanish and German meats, whose manufacture would have been prevented by the new rules.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

DRASTIC reform of the European Commission’s troubled wine sector has been proposed by the European Commission, whose officials are "reasonably confident" the plan will not be unduly delayed or watered down by European Union (EU) member governments. The heart of the reform announced June 22 by the EU agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel is grubbing up scheme costing Euro 2.4 billion over five years that would take 400,000 hectares of the present 3.4 million hectares out of wine production.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel has attacked another decision by the EU’s Wine Management Committee to fund vast amounts of crisis distillation for unsold European wine – this time in Spain and Greece. The committee has approved distilling up to 300,000 hectolitres of Spanish quality wine; 370,000 hl of Greek table wine; and 130,000 hl of Greek quality wine: total cost – Euro 22.2 million.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

GREEN campaigners from next June will be able to launch legal action to force European Union (EU) institutions to disgorge potentially important environmental information. Under an EU law agreed last week (3 May) by a conciliation committee linking the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers, the terms of the UN’s Aarhus Convention on environmental transparency must apply to EU bodies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SPANISH consumer protection authorities have banned the import of a China-made toy novelty make-up set branded ‘Royal Make-up’ and ‘Geoffrey’. It has alerted the European Commission’s RAPEX unsafe product warning system that the set has unsafe mesophilic aerobic microorganisms, mould and yeast contamination counts, breaking the European Union cosmetics and toys directives and Spanish national rules.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SPANISH government has been given two months by the European Commission to say how it will implement a key European Union (EU) copyright law, or face legal action maybe resulting in massive daily recurring fines. Madrid has failed to comply with a European Court of Justice (ECJ) order to write into its national statute book the 2001 copyright directive, which updates EU legislation considering digital technology.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has taken another step towards securing valuable fishing rights for its fleets in the Pacific, with the EU Council of Ministers approving an access agreement with Micronesia. For nine years, Spanish and Portuguese longliners along with Spanish and French freezer seiners will be able to fish the archipelago’s rich tuna fishing grounds north of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

INTRODUCTION

WE’RE barely a third of the way through 2006 but it’s already clear that the year is going to be a hugely important one for European Union (EU) legislation affecting both the alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks industries.…

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

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

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) competition commissioner has indicated she could push for regulatory reform to improve competition in EU energy markets, in parallel with legal enforcement action using existing rules. Neelie Kroes highlighted "bundling of generation, supply, pipelines, grids, and distribution (as) at the heart of the current EU energy market failure."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is to stage negotiations with the Peruvian government on forging a fishing access agreement with the European Union (EU), its first struck with a South American country. If successful, a deal would be a rich prize for EU fishermen, given the plentiful stocks that teem Peru’s deep Pacific Ocean territorial waters.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has formally told Spain to abolish 25% tax credits offered to Spanish companies investing abroad, claiming these benefits break European Union (EU) competition laws. Brussels has given Madrid one month to agree. If not, a formal inquiry would be opened: the first stage of legal infringement proceedings that could lead to the European Court of Justice.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commissions rapid alert system for food and feed (RASFF) has warned of sales in the Czech Republic of Spanish fruit flavour confectionary containing excess colouring E124 and in Austria of foods containing unauthorised Indian ingredient betel nuts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced its latest tranche of subsidies to European Union (EU) food and drink producer organisations paying for non-EU sales promotion. They cover Euro 1.7 million on Spanish cheese, Euro 420,000 on Italian cheese and Euro 787,000 on Greek olives, amongst other products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A NEW Spanish scientific study has suggested a new alternative use for tobacco plants: generating a synthetic human serum albumin (HSA), a component of blood plasma used to treat dehydration, liver or kidney disease or haemorrhages. The current worldwide demand for HSA exceeds 500 tons per year, and almost all is sourced from blood donations, which are not always reliable.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROBAROMETER FOOD POLL

WHEN EU consumers think of food, more associate it with "taste" – 31%, than with "pleasure" – 29%, "hunger" – 27%, "health" – 19% and "necessity" – 15%, said a new opinion poll from EU survey organisation Eurobarometer.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

IN line with the growing recognition in the 1980s of anti-money laundering campaigns as a weapon against terrorism and increased knowledge global drug supply routes, (implicating a number of Latin American countries), governments of the western hemisphere concluded that greater formal co-operation was necessary in fighting dirty money.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a detailed investigation into whether Euro 35 million lent by the Catalonia regional government to Spanish lollypop giant Chupa Chups broke EU state subsidy rules.

ENDS…

BY ALAN OSBORN

BRITISH nurses might be forgiven for thinking that the 25 eminent judges who make up the European Union’s (EU) top legal institution, the European Court of Justice (ECJ), have little in common with them, and they may well be right.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

IN line with the growing recognition in the 1980s of anti-money laundering campaigns as a weapon against terrorism and increased knowledge global drug supply routes, (implicating a number of Latin American countries), governments of the western hemisphere concluded that greater formal co-operation was necessary in fighting dirty money.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

Fact box – Andorra

Population of country: 76,875 (2004)

Number of students enrolled at university: 718

Percentage of students native to the country where the university is located: 60%

Percentage of eligible population attending university: 10% (see text)

INTERNVIEW

IT’S something of a surprise to find that a country as small as Andorra has its own university, and perhaps easy to be a little patronising about it.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A RESEARCH and development consortium supported by the European Union (EU) is preparing to commercially launch a microwave sensor that can detect faults in moulded polyurethane before it hardens into heels and outer soles. The Microshoe project aimed to reduce defective parts, which can account for 20% of polyurethane created by shoe manufacturers, increasing costs markedly.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a detailed investigation into whether Euro 35 million lent by the Catalonia regional government to Spanish lollypop giant Chupa Chups broke European Union (EU) state subsidy rules.

ENDS…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared the launch of two related publishing logistics joint ventures, which will work in Spain and Portugal. One will focus on book distribution, and will be owned by Compañía de Distribución Integral Logista SA (Logista) and Editorial Planeta SA, both of Spain.…

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

A RESEARCH and development consortium funded by the European Union (EU) is preparing to commercially launch a microwave sensor that can detect faults in moulded polyurethane before it hardens into heels and outer soles. The Microshoe project aimed to reduce the amount of defective parts, which can account for 20% of polyurethane created by shoe manufacturers, increasing costs markedly.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GERMANY’S Artemis Pharmaceuticals has agreed to help Spanish biotechnology company the Centre for Applied Molecular Research Salamanca (CIBASA) market CIBASA’s cancer stem cell based ‘Oncostem’ technology to pharmaceutical manufacturers developing novel anti-cancer therapies. CIBASA has a collection of cancer mouse models that show identical pathology to corresponding human cancers and similar responses to known therapeutic agents.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SPANISH cava maker Castellblanch has failed in an attempt at the European Court of Justice’s Court of First Instance to secure European Union-wide trademark rights to a castle logo, with the words ‘cristal’ and ‘castellblanch’. This was opposed by France’s Champagne Louis Roederer which claimed it would be confused with its own ‘cristal’ mark.…

BY LIZ HALL, in Alicante

SINCE March 2005, Operation White Whale, an extensive international anti-money-laundering operation spearheaded by the Spain’s National Police (the Policia Nacional), has produced the arrest of 57 people and the laundering of at least Euro 250 million euros obtained through illegal drug trafficking, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry (Ministerio del Interior).…

BY ALAN OSBORN

A MAJOR battle is looming over the European Union’s (EU) alcohol policy, with Britain seen by many as the major opponent of tougher anti-drink legislation amongst the 25 member states. A Communication (formal policy paper) ‘on a strategy on alcohol-related harm’ is being drawn up by the European Commission, but while this is not due for adoption before mid-2006, furious lobbying on both sides is already evident.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DETAILS of a rich nine-year fishing access deal struck between the European Union (EU) and the Federated States of Micronesia, in the western Pacific, have been released by the European Commission.

Noting that the western Pacific is “the richest tuna fishery ground in the world (it accounts for 50% of total tuna catches world-wide)”, the Commission stressed: “The current state of the stocks is good and that, for certain species, the maximum safe level of exploitation has not been reached yet.”…

Keith Nuthall
POLITICAL pressure is being piled onto European Union (EU) member states to release more information about the way they spend EU-funded grants and subsidies from the Euro 110 billion EU budget. In a long-awaited ‘European Transparency Initiative’, EU anti-fraud Commissioner Siim Kallas has proposed discussions with national governments about “the introduction of a legal obligation to publish information about projects and end beneficiaries of funds under shared management”, between member states and Brussels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPAIN has been singled out for criticism by a European Environment Agency (EEA) report on urban wastewater treatment, noting that despite Euro 3.8 billion in targeted subsidies, it does not comply with relevant European Union (EU) laws. The EEA said only 55% of the population is connected to public sewage treatment plants, “and advanced treatment remains an exception”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AFTER years of doing nothing, and then years of erecting complex bureaucratic controls, the European Union (EU) is at last starting to get its act together on controlling fraud. Keith Nuthall reports.

IN a filthy flat, not properly cleaned for years, moving the odd cupboard and shining a torch on the floor is sure to highlight a few cockroaches, scuttling for safety towards some Godforsaken corner.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
POLITICAL pressure is being piled onto European Union (EU) member states to release more information about how they spend EU-funded grants and subsidies from the Euro 110 billion EU budget. In a long-awaited ‘European Transparency Initiative’, EU anti-fraud Commissioner Siim Kallas has proposed discussions with national governments about ” a legal obligation to publish information about projects and end beneficiaries of funds under shared management”, between member states and Brussels.…

BY WESLEY GIBBINGS
THE RELATIONSHIP between Caribbean people and tobacco could have at one time been described as virtually umbilical, with important outward feeders to Europe and other parts of the world. Tobago, the smaller unit of the twin-island state of Trinidad & Tobago, bears the name of the instrument used by native Amerindians 500 years ago to smoke Burly blends.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has fined four Italian tobacco processors Euro 56 million in total for colluding for six years over the fixing of prices paid to growers and their agents, and on choosing which supplier to use. Such a cartel is illegal under European Union (EU) competition legislation, and has sparked fines of Euro 30 million to Deltafina; Euro 14 million to Transcatab; Euro 10 million to Mindo (formerly known as Dimon); and Euro 2.05 million to Romana Tabacchi.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced its latest tranche of funding to help European Union (EU) drinks producers sell products outside the EU. Maybe the most significant grant is Euro 1.43 million being paid over three years by Brussels to Lithuania to boost exports of wines and spirits.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ROLE of the Caribbean as a staging point for ill-gotten gains goes back to the trans-Atlantic misadventures of the first European ships over 400 years ago. It would appear some habits die hard. Wesley Gibbings reports from Port of Spain, Trinidad.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EURO 15 million fine imposed by the European Commission on DaimlerChrysler for alleged illegal anti-competitive actions involving Spanish leasing companies has been lifted. The company had prevented German agents and Spanish dealers from supplying Mercedes-Benz cars to leasing companies before they secured customers, something Brussels said broke European Union (EU) competition laws.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SPANISH government has been censured by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for breaking European Union (EU) laws by failing to control waste from a pig farm, near Vera, the Costa Blanca. The ECJ said that by failing to ensure it did not pollute ground waters, especially with slurry, it broke EU nitrates and wastewater directives.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has pushed ahead with securing more overseas fishing access deals for EU fishing crews in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Crucially EU ministers have been formally asked to approve a deal regarding the key Pacific grounds off the Solomon Islands.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is planning to lend Euro 149.6 million to Spanish electricity company Viesgo Generación to build a large natural gas-fired combined cycle generating plant in Spain, generating around 800 MWe. The project would entail constructing advanced gas-fired combined-cycle technology with a relatively low environmental impact in a poorer area of Spain.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States will have to review countervailing measures it has imposed on privatised British and Spanish steel-makers after a World Trade Organisation (WTO) disputes panel ruled they were partly imposed in breach of WTO rules. The panel however rejected claims that the US had erred in a sunset review of measures imposed against France’s Usinor regarding certain corrosion-resistant carbon steel flat products, which should be allowed to stand.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
RESEARCHERS at the Institute of Vegetal Biology and Photosynthesis of the Spanish National Research Council, in Seville, have developed a system producing large amounts of lutein, an antioxidant fighting degenerative diseases such as arteriosclerosis or cataracts. They have created a cell culture production system using the green alga Muriellopsis, which they claim guarantees more abundant and sustained production than from marigold plant petals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has formally threatened Spain with legal action for failing to obey a European Court Justice order to relinquish ‘golden share’ rights over tobacco giant Tabacalera. Judges told Spain May 2003 to liberalise a law allowing the Spanish government control over the company’s winding-up, de-merger, merger and disposal of assets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the take over of Spanish toiletries, cosmetics and beauty product retailer Cortefiel by Coral Retail Industries, controlled by Luxembourg investment fund CVC Capital Partners Group. Brussels fast-tracked clearing the deal, despite CVC’s control of Spanish-American perfume, cosmetic and toiletries wholesaler the Colomer Group.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has ruled that in future, Spanish food products should not be marketed with the words ‘biológico’ or ‘bio’ if they have not been organically produced.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has released details of a fishing agreement that will give 40 European Union (EU) tuna seiners and 17 surface longliners access to the Indian Ocean waters off the Comoros archipelago. Asking EU ministers to approve the deal, Brussels said it would cover an annual catch of 6,000 tonnes of tuna in Comoros waters until December 2010.…

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
SPANISH meat and poultry company Grupo Sada has lost an attempt to secure European Union (EU) trademark rights to its name, with the European Court of Justice (ECJ) fearing possible confusion with Brazilian competitor Sadia SA.

Meanwhile, Sweden should be censured for breaking EU directive 89/662/EEC on health controls for livestock and meat by insisting Swedish veterinary authorities be warned at least 24-hours ahead of impending shipments, an ECJ advocate general has said.…

BY LIZ HALL
A PROFUSION of family-run businesses, corrupt and under-resourced authorities and low wages has traditionally meant much commercial crime goes undetected in Latin America. But the tide is turning, with more and more companies unwilling to turn a blind eye to fraud, bribery and counterfeit goods production.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission will spend Euro millions over the next three years promoting French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German and Austrian wines in key foreign markets. Announcing the latest of a series of such grants, (matched by national funding), Brussels noted that the main targets would be north America, China, Russia, India, Japan and non-European Union countries in central and eastern Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SPANISH government has called for some simplification and flexibility in the implementation of the recent European Union (EU) reforms to its subsidy regime for leaf tobacco growers. It has called on the EU Council of Ministers (agriculture) to allow single payments to be made to producers for the 2005 harvest to avoid calculation problems relating to the transfer of quotas from one grower to another and national reserves of subsidies controlled by governments.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
PRESIDENT George W Bush’s re-election last November has pretty well ruled out any change in the US ban on Cuban cigars for the next four years – if anything, things are likely to get tougher. One of the last things the previous Bush administration did last October was to actually tighten the import ban by barring Americans travelling to Cuba from bringing back up to US$100 dollars worth of Cuban cigars.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE HOT topic in Gibraltar’s financial circles at present is Spain’s accusation that the Rock’s authorities have not been co-operating in the fight against money laundering. This is not an unfamiliar charge in the perpetual diplomatic row between Madrid and the British territory, but the latest airing of it has gained extra bite because of the enormous scale of the alleged crime, according to local newspaper reports, to run up to Euro 600 million and maybe more.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission will spend the majority of a new Euro 5 million budget over the next three years promoting French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German and Austrian wines in key foreign markets. Brussels noted that the main targets would be north America, China, Russia, India, Japan and non-European Union countries in central and eastern Europe.…

BY LIZ HALL
SPAIN’S paint and coating industry has every right to be self-congratulatory at present: the widespread investment and business improvements of recent years have paid off with the sector securing a well-earned place alongside its counterparts elsewhere in the developed world.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has approved a new fishing access deal with Madagascar, allowing Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese to catch tuna in its Indian Ocean waters until December 2006. The EU will pay Madagascar Euro 825,000 this year and next to compensate it for the loss of fish.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is taking the Spanish government to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), asking judges to order Madrid to conduct environmental assessments into sand extraction it allows along the Spanish Mediterranean coast. Brussels said under European law, Spain should have in particular protected EU-registered Natura 2000 conservation sites.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NORWAY’S alcohol advertising ban has been undermined by a European Free Trade Area (EFTA) Court ruling, which says that the Norwegian Alcohol Act breaks trade freedom rules of the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement. The act could be justified only, said the ruling, “where the protection of public health against the harmful effects of alcohol can be secured by measures having less effect on intra-EEA trade”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SPANISH cava maker Castellblanch has failed in an attempt at the European Court of Justice’s Court of First Instance to secure European Union-wide trademark rights to a castle logo, with the words ‘cristal’ and ‘castellblanch’. This was opposed by France’s Champagne Louis Roederer which claimed it would be confused with its own ‘cristal’ mark.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

A MAJOR battle is looming over the European Union’s (EU) alcohol policy, with Britain seen by many as the major opponent of tougher anti-drink legislation amongst the 25 member states. A Communication (formal policy paper) ‘on a strategy on alcohol-related harm’ is being drawn up by the European Commission, but while this is not due for adoption before mid-2006, furious lobbying on both sides is already evident.…

BY LIZ HALL, in Alicante

SINCE March 2005, Operation White Whale, an extensive international anti-money-laundering operation spearheaded by the Spain’s National Police (the Policia Nacional), has produced the arrest of 57 people and the laundering of at least Euro 250 million euros obtained through illegal drug trafficking, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry (Ministerio del Interior).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SPANISH government is likely to lose a European Court of Justice (ECJ) battle with the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers to secure additional fishing rights in coastal waters around the Atlantic frontier between Spain and France.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE LAST people most farmers would like controlling European agricultural policy are glib public relations experts, armed with palm-top digital personal organisers and a sheaf of focus group studies. Such complaints have often been levelled at the Blair government, accused of bending with the wind of public opinion.…

Keith Nuthall
THE INTERNATIONAL Labour Organisation (ILO) has created a new electronic library simplifying access to more than 1,000 of the UN agency’s publications on work place issues. This ILO Insight archive covers issues including labour, employment, social protection, women at work, occupational safety and health, child labour, management, training, labour statistics and more.…

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”.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has referred the creation of a proposed aircraft refuelling joint venture between Spanish petrol companies Shell Espana and Cepsa to Spain’s competition authorities, which may block the deal. The new business SIS would work in Spanish mainland and Balearic island airports.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has allowed France and Spain to use VAT rules departing from standard EU practice regarding tax declarations for investment gold. These sales can be exempt of VAT under EU legislation, meaning they maybe do not generate income for customs authorities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has approved a six-year fishing access deal struck between the European Commission and the Indian Ocean archipelago nation of the Comoros. Replacing a 1988 agreement with this Islamic republic, the new deal will come into force on New Years Day.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SPANISH government has become the latest European Union (EU) government to be censured by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failing to implement mandated EU fishing quota administration, monitoring and inspections. The court found that Spain had also failed to prevent fishing after quotas had been exhausted, and not taken “penal or administrative measures against the captains of ships (or any one else responsible) for breaking these limits”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SIX year fishing agreement struck between the European Commission and the Seychelles has reduced access for European Union (EU) tuna boats to answer criticism that similar past deals have been emptying developing world waters of fish. The new agreement with the Seychelles – lasting from January 2005 to 2011 – cuts fishing opportunities for tuna long-liners by 15% by 2006.…

Keith Nuthall
SPANISH national carrier Iberia has warned it may formally complain at the European Commission about alleged illegal state aid from Spain’s regional governments to Ireland’s Ryanair. Iberia chief executive Angel Mullor said his company was “gathering information” on subsidies helping Ryanair operate at regional airports, such as Santander, northern Spain, and Girona, Catalonia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has confirmed that countries in its eastern Europe and central Asia area of focus are booming because of high oil prices. Its annual 2004 Transition Report says Russia and the Ukraine are experiencing “skyrocketing annual growth”, making the former Warsaw Pact the world’s second-fastest-growing region (up 6.1%), next to China and its southern neighbours.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ECSTASY has become Britain’s number two illicit drug, overtaking amphetamines, warns a new European Union (EU) narcotics report alerting public health professional across Europe to increasing abuse of most recreational drugs. The best news highlighted by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) is that heroin use and new HIV infections are falling in western Europe, although they are increasing in many eastern European countries, such as the Baltic States.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has overturned a European Commission order that Spanish synthetic fibres producer Sniace SA, of Cantabria, repay state aid of Pesetas 8 billion (Euro 48 million) it received in the 1990’s. This was paid via the rescheduling of debts to Spain’s social security fund and de facto low interest loans from its wage guarantee fund Fogasa.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
The first report of the new European Pollutant Emission Register (EPER) which was created earlier this year says that in Europe “a high proportion of industrial pollution is caused by a few single plants.” The report, which initially covers emissions in the 15 EU countries, Norway and Hungary in the year 2001, is soon to be upgraded to a European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register which will significantly widen the range of pollutants, industries and emissions, will report every year instead of every third one and will take data from road traffic, aviation, shipping and agriculture as well as industry.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) incoming agriculture Commissioner signalled a tough approach to New World wine and spirit producers who exploit traditional European geographic names on wine products after she takes up her post on November 1.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PUNISHING fines have been imposed by the European Commission on Spanish and Italian tobacco processors for operating a pricing and purchasing cartel between 1996 and 2001. Brussels has slammed Italy’s Deltafina with a Euro 11.8 million fine, as cartel leader and the main buyer of tobacco grown in Spain.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
TINY, mountainous and very very friendly to rich people with plenty of cash to stash away, Andorra ought to be a money launderer’s paradise. On balance, anti money laundering people say that it is not, though the relentless culture of secrecy about financial matters makes this impossible to say with certainty.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPANISH steel producer Acerinox is likely to lose a final appeal against European Union (EU) rulings that it took part in a cartel in Spain’s market for stainless steel. An advocate general of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has recommended that ECJ judges back the junior European Court of First Instance’s insistence that Acerinox took part in market fixing with Germany’s ThyssenKrupp and others.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has drawn up plans to lend Spain’s Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea (AENA) up to Euro 550 million to help modernise the country’s air traffic control systems and infrastructure in Spain. The aim, said an EIB note, was to bring Spanish ATC services “in line with the technical requirements of Eurocontrol”, helping to harmonise air traffic control standards across Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ERRORS made by the European Commission lawyers have wrecked a European Court of Justice (ECJ) case designed to force Spain to recognise air traffic control qualifications gained in other European Union (EU) member states.

Judges threw out Brussels’ application, citing a litany of legal mistakes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SPANISH and Finnish governments have failed in a legal attempt to scrap the European Union’s (EU) working time directive regarding professional road transport drivers. Both countries claimed at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that the legislation should not have applied to self-employed drivers, but this was rejected by the ECJ, along with other complaints.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the purchase from French company Alliance Agroalimentaire of Spanish dairy product companies Grupo el Prado Cervera and Central Lechera Vallisoletana (CLV) by rival Lactalis Iberia, also of Spain, (owned by Belgian holding company BSA).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has added seven traditional food products to the EU register of protected geographical indications: Spanish beef Ternera de Navarre, Carne de Vacuno del País Vasco and Carne de Cantabria and veal Carne de la Sierra de Guadarrama, Portuguese sausages Farinheira de Estremoz e Borba, Italian Kiwi fruits Latina and Valle del Belice and France’s Noix du Périgord nuts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ALCOPOPS have had a bad rap. They are viewed, whether correctly or accurately, as the drink that weans young people from Coca-Cola and 7-Up into the world of alcohol, without them learning how to drink sensibly. They are also the drinks industry’s key innovation of the last decade, creating a new sector that – before a recent decline in popularity – seemed on course to eclipse some established products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has added five additional traditional Iberian meat products to the European Union’s (EU) register of protected geographical indications. They are Spanish beef lines Ternera de Navarre, Carne de Vacuno del País Vasco and Carne de Cantabria and veal Carne de la Sierra de Guadarrama veal, plus Portuguese sausages Farinheira de Estremoz e Borba.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ENERGY portfolio at the European Commission is being downgraded this November with the departure of Spain’s Loyola de Palacio, a vice-president as well as an energy commissioner. Hungary’s foreign minister László Kovacs – who will be a standard commissioner without the transport portfolio also commanded by De Palacio – is replacing her.…

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
ALCOPOPS have had a bad rap. They are viewed, whether correctly or accurately, as the drink that weans young people from Coca-Cola and 7-Up into the world of alcohol, without them learning how to drink sensibly. They are also the drinks industry’s key innovation of the last decade, creating a new sector that – before a recent decline in popularity – seemed on course to eclipse some established products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Environment Agency (EEA) says the old 15 member European Union’s (EU) greenhouse gas emissions fell by 0.5% from 2001-2, following increases in the previous two years. Sadly, proactive anti-global warming measures were not top of the agency’s reasons for the cut.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has decided to launch legal action against Spain over the transfer of insurance portfolios in that country, which Brussels says are in violation of European Union’s (EU) insurance directives and the principle of free movement of services.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is pressing Spain to implement a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling of last May, telling it to reform a law allowing it to block deals involving tobacco giant Tabacalera SA. If Spain continues to ignore the ruling, it could face massive daily recurring fines worth Euro 1,000’s.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NATIONAL work accident statistics are keenly examined by occupational health practitioners, but they do not enable the safety of British workplaces to be compared against other European countries; that is where Eurostat, the European Union’s (EU) statistical agency comes in.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
SPANISH oil and gas giant Repsol YDF has begun drilling for oil in Cuban waters in a narrow sector of the Gulf of Mexico, using a Norwegian drilling platform for US$200,000 a day. The Spaniards are working with government oil company Cubapetróleo in a narrow sector of the Gulf of Mexico, off Cuba’s north-western coast.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is pressing Spain to implement a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling of last May, telling it to reform a law allowing it to block deals involving tobacco giant Tabacalera SA. If Spain continues to ignore the ruling, it could face massive daily recurring fines worth Euro 1,000’s.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT is early days, but the European Union’s (EU) Solidarity Fund, subsidising the costs of large-scale disasters, shows every likelihood of being a permanent feature of the EU risk management scene. We’re not talking small beer here; the fund paid out Euro 104.7 million last year and Euro 728 million the year before that, easing the consequences of disasters such as floods, earthquakes and forest fires.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
STATE aid of Euro 30 million has been authorised for the Spanish olive-pomace oil industry, as compensation for expensive manufacturing improvements it has been forced to make in the wake of a 2001 scandal about polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) contamination.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has drawn up plans to lend Spanish steel group Celsa Euro 40 million to help restructure Polish steel mill Huta Ostrowiec (HO), which was liquidated in Summer 2003 having been placed in receivership.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have approved an agreement with west Africa’s Guinea Bissau, which will guarantee access to its fishing grounds for Italian, French, Greek, Portuguese and Spanish fishermen until June 2006. The deal involves the Guinea Bissau government being granted Euro 7.26 million a year in financial compensation.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved a joint venture involving national carrier Iberia and Cobra, (owned by Spanish construction group ACS). The venture Serpista will repair and maintain ground-handling equipment. Brussels said there were no serious competition concerns as rivals could “relatively easily enter the market.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has drawn up plans to lend Spanish utility Enagás SA up to Euro 450 million to reinforce and extend the country’s gas transmission network and reserve facilities. These improvements would cover most of the country and are included in the 2002-2011 Spanish National Energy Plan.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is planning to lend Spanish utility Enagás SA up to Euro 450 million to reinforce and extend the country’s gas transmission network and reserve facilities. These improvements would cover most of the country and are included in the 2002-2011 Spanish National Energy Plan.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE DISASTERS caused by the tailings pond disasters at Baia Mare, Romania, and Aznalcóllar, Spain, have generated a major rethink in Brussels about the suitability of regulating potentially toxic mining waste under general European Union (EU) waste and landfill legislation.…

KEITH NUTHALL
LISTERIA monocytogenes contaminants have been found in Spanish sea bass and German smoked salmon, according to a recent bulletin from the European Commission’s rapid alert service on food safety. The system also publicises alerts on fish imported into the European Union, recently highlighting aerobic mesophiles in Indonesian shrimp, for instance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission was due to meet the Spanish government on Monday (3 May) about how European Union (EU) finds might support the funding of a pared down – but still controversial – Spanish National Hydrological Plan. An announcement was planned for the same day and it was anticipated that some Brussels money would be made available for diverting water from the northern Jucar river basin to the Vinalopó, near Alicante.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN coastguard service should be established to tighten protection of European Union (EU) shores, the European Parliament’s temporary committee on improving safety at sea has recommended following its Prestige disaster inquiry. The organisation would have the authority to assign emergency moorings and ports in the even t of a maritime accident, strictly monitor the following of ships to correct routes and prosecute the illegal entry of vessels.…

BY MARK WILSON
AWASH with recently-passed legislation and newly-established Financial Investigation Units, the small nations of the Caribbean have transformed their money laundering controls since the mid-1990s. In 2000, five Caribbean island jurisdictions made up one-third of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) list of fifteen non-cooperative countries and territories, each of them with ‘serious systemic problems,’ in the words of a FATF review published on June 22 of that year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INVESTMENTS in the waste water systems of the Spanish Basque province of Guipuzcoa that are likely to be supported by the European Investment Bank (EIB) should also positively benefit the environmental health of water supplies in France’s Basque country.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SPANISH professor of shipping sciences has told a European Parliament inquiry into the Prestige disaster that the ill-fated tanker’s captain Apostolos Mangouras should not be blamed for the tragedy. Instead, said Felipe Louzán Lago, also a merchant navy captain, blamed the Spanish authorities for not allowing Mr Mangouras to sail to a port of refuge.…

From Alan Osborn
The European Parliament has acted under its own initiative to put

up a plan to protect the EU’s tuna industry – both the fleet and the

canning sector. The Parliament has approved a report by a Spanish member,

Daniel VARELA SUANZES-CARPEGNA, which urges a reversal of present EU

policy towards the industry and calls for creation of a new

properly-staffed and financed unit within the European Commission to deal

with tuna.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SERIES of exemptions from the European Union’s (EU) new energy taxation directive have been proposed by the European Commission for the eastern and southern European countries joining the EU in May (barring Cyprus).

They would be added to the already long list of exemptions negotiated by existing Member States that prompted EU internal market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein to liken the legislation to “Gruyere cheese”.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has threatened legal action against Spain over the transfer of insurance portfolios in that country, which Brussels says are in violation of European Union’s (EU) insurance directives and the principle of free movement of services.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPANISH nut and locust bean producers are to be paid up to Euro 241.50 per hectare in aid to improve production under proposals approved by the European Commission.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE UNITED States government has integrated information on all its consumer product recalls onto one central website, offering a convenient service to retailers. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has launched the English and Spanish-language site (www.recalls.gov) in collaboration with five other federal agencies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has delayed a decision over whether it should fund a controversial Spain water transfer scheme, with environment commissioner Margot Wallström saying she needed more proof that transferring water from the Júcar river follows European Union (EU) environmental laws.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BINDING energy conservation targets have been proposed for European Union (EU) Member States by the European Commission, a move that could further tighten fuel economy rules for Europe’s transport sector. Brussels has proposed a general energy saving target of one per cent a year from 2006-12, measured against average energy distribution from the previous five years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have been asked to approve a detailed fishing access deal allowing EU fishing boats access to the Atlantic fishing waters off west Africa’a Guinea Bissau until June 2006. Under the agreement, licences to fish shrimp will be granted to Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Greek vessels, with boats from Spain (enjoying the overwhelming majority of rights), Italy and Greece being allowed to take fin-fish/cephalopods.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BINDING energy conservation targets have been proposed for European Union (EU) Member States by the European Commission, a move that could further tighten fuel economy rules for Europe’s transport sector. Brussels has proposed a general energy saving target of one per cent a year from 2006-12, measured against average energy distribution from the previous five years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has granted competition clearance to the acquisition by Spain’s Vidacaixa of Swiss Life España (SLE) from the Swiss Life Insurance and Pension Company Holding. Brussels has investigated concerns that the merged company could be too dominant in the Spanish life insurance sector, but concluded that highest possible combined market share would “not exceed 20 per cent” and that “there remains a sufficient number of strong competitors”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPANISH nut and locust bean producers are to be paid up to Euro 241.50 per hectare in aid to improve production under proposals approved by the European Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN’S legitimate tobacco trade may face a renewed increase in black-market supplies, if renewed pressure from the European Commission on the British government to reduce customs seizures of EU-duty-paid tobacco is successful.

The Commission has started formal European law infringement proceedings against the UK, seemingly unimpressed by concessions from its government over the amounts of tobacco and alcohol that can be imported from other member countries for personal use.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL and ALAN OSBORN
EUROPEAN Commission president Romano Prodi has announced a string of reforms designed to further toughen his organisation’s ability to fight internal fraud and mismanagement. Stung by criticisms following the Eurostat scandal that he has failed to deliver on his goal of squashing European Union (EU) financial misconduct, he told the European Parliament’s budgetary affairs committee that the Commission would increase the political responsibility of Commissioners for the actions of their officers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Commission president Romano Prodi has announced a string of reforms designed to further toughen his organisation’s ability to fight internal fraud and mismanagement. Stung by criticisms following the Eurostat scandal that he has failed to deliver on his goal of squashing European Union (EU) financial misconduct, he told the European Parliament’s budgetary affairs committee that the Commission would increase the political responsibility of Commissioners for the actions of their officers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has started European law infringement proceedings against the British government, formally demanding confirmation it will continue to seize alcohol brought into the UK from other EU countries by citizens shipping alcohol for other people, but not for profit.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
The European Commission has granted clearance under the Merger Regulation to the acquisition by the Italian energy company Enel Produzione S.p.A of a stake in Spanish electricity producer Unión Fenosa Energías Especiales S.A., which is currently wholly controlled by Unión Fenosa Generación S.A.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has released details of a deal struck with the Ivory Coast that will allow European Union (EU) fishing boats access to its rich tropical fish reserves this year and next. It has asked EU ministers to approve a deal allowing 600 GRT of Spanish demersal vessels to fish of the west African country, along with 18 tuna seiners from France and 21 from Spain; five Portuguese and 15 Spanish surface longliners and seven pole-and-line tuna vessels from France and five from Spain.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Commission proposals to boost nuclear energy safety in Europe have come under fire from the British and German governments as well as the European Parliament, making it highly unlikely that they will be approved unscathed. In an unusual joint letter to the Commission, UK prime minister Tony Blair and German chancellor Gerhard Schröder criticised Brussels’ proposed directive, claiming that it would not deal tangible benefits in nuclear security.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
IT is an odd and depressing fact that employees who expose corruption, negligence and other malpractices in their work-place usually end up more reviled and outcast than those actually responsible for the wrong-doing in the first place. The institutions of the European Union offer excellent case studies in this regard.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has drawn up plans to lend Spanish fish products group MAPESCA Euro six million to establish a fish processing plant in the northern Mauritania port of Nouadhibou. Its aim would be to manufacture fish products that could be exported direct to western markets, rather fresh fish being consumed locally or exported without manufacturing value being added locally.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NEW advanced carbon-fibre composites have been developed by a European Union research project that can be used to strengthen decaying and historic buildings, allowing contractors to avoid using more cumbersome traditional methods. The international COMREHAB project has created high resistance synthetic fibres from epoxy or polyester resin matrixes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is threatening Spain with legal action at the European Court of Justice over a ban on certain energy drinks and dietary supplements containing guarana and a high percentage of caffeine imposed in the Valencia region.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL in Paris, ALAN OSBORN in London, MARK ROWE in Singapore, ED PETERS and DON GASPER in Hong Kong, RICHARD HURST in Johannesburg, MONICA DOBIE and PHILIP FINE in Montreal, MATTHEW BRACE in Brisbane and ALEX SMAILES in Port of Spain.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL and PHILIP FINE

EUROPEAN Union consumers have a "reasonable level" of confidence in making online financial transactions, although concerns are more intense in southern Europe. According to European Commission figures, on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 representing absolute confidence), on average EU citizens rate their feelings at 7.08.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SHARP public spat over the Kyoto Protocol has soured relations between the European Union’s (EU) environment Commissioner Margot Wallström and energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio. The social democrat Swede criticised her Spanish conservative colleague in an undiplomatic briefing to journalists in Brussels, following de Palacio’s comments that the EU might have to reconsider supporting Kyoto, given Russia’s reluctance to ratify it.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
The European Commission has cleared the purchase of the Spanish insurance company Metlife Iberia, currently controlled by Metlife International Holdings of the US, by Liberty Insurance Group Compañía de Seguros y Reaseguros. The buyer is part of the US group Liberty Mutual.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE PRESENT European Commission under the presidency of Romano Prodi has sometimes been said to be ‘green-minded,’ in that it takes a more friendly attitude towards the environment than either its predecessors or the European Union member governments.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced that it will be grant aiding Spain’s Institut del Cava with Euro 945,038 to help it promote Spanish wine exports outside of the European Union over the next three years. National funds are expected to top up this programme, raising the overall budget to Euro 1,890,076.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GOLDEN shares retained by the Spanish government in its privatised national tobacco giant Tabacalera are illegal under European Union freedom of movement of capital laws, the European Court of Justice has ruled. Spanish legislation allows Madrid control over some major decisions relating to the winding-up, de-merger, merger, disposal of assets and others of some privatised companies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GOLDEN shares retained by the Spanish government in its privatised national tobacco energy Endesa and telecoms operator Telefónica are illegal under European Union freedom of movement of capital laws, the European Court of Justice has ruled. Spanish legislation allows Madrid control over some major decisions relating to the winding-up, de-merger, merger, disposal of assets and others of some privatised companies, including these two utilities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GOLDEN shares retained by the Spanish government in its privatised national tobacco giant Tabacalera are illegal under European Union freedom of movement of capital laws, the European Court of Justice has ruled. Spanish legislation allows Madrid control over some major decisions relating to the winding-up, de-merger, merger, disposal of assets and others of some privatised companies.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SPAIN is facing legal action at the hands of the European Commission over its failure to respond to a request for information on how it has applied the EU’s environmental Impact Assessment Directive with regard to a waste-water treatment plant serving tanneries at Lorca in Murcia.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has given the Spanish government two months to provide full information about the environmental impact of its highly controversial National Hydroelectric Plan (NHP) or face a possible action in the European Court of Justice. The Commission says Spain has not responded to a request for information made last September on how it assessed a proposed hydro-electric project in the catchment area of the River Ulla in Galicia.…

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
THE SPANISH government has agreed to cooperate with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to fight breaches of copyright, especially in digital publishing. A joint memorandum of understanding committed both sides to cooperate over training, publicity campaigns and information exchanges.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has authorised the Spanish government to pay out industry-wide state aid totalling Euro 425 million covering expenses incurred by the country’s coal industry from July 24 to December 31, 2002, and additional aid of Euro 11.2 million for 2001 and 2002 until July 23.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRAUDSTERS have developed two new twists on the ever-popular advance fee scam. The International Chamber of Commerce has warned of a Nigerian oil fraud particularly featuring Bonny Light oil, where fake oil traders offer up to 1 million barrels at below market rates, following the payment of cash fees of around US$50,000.…

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 ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered the Spanish government to reclaim Euro 104 million, (about Pounds 64.5 million), from the troubled textile company Hilados y Tejidos Puigneró. The Barcelona-based company, which produces yarns, fabrics and finished textile products, ran into debt in the 1990’s and the Spanish authorities were unable to recover money owed to them.…

Keith Nuthall
Spain has been ordered to repay 21 million euros (about pounds 13.6

million) of EU aid in respect of “serious deficiencies in the

administration and control of the aid for flax and hemp production.”

Omissions by the Spanish authorities “led to an exceptionally high risk

for the EU budget,” said farm Commissioner Franz Fischler.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INQUIRY into whether national state aid paid to Spanish coal mining company González y Díez was illegal under European rules is to be reopened, seven months after the European Commission ruled on the case. Last July 2, it decided that under the now defunct regulations of the former European Coal and Steel Community that the Spanish government should recover state aid paid to the company between1998 and 2000 and should not pay aid earmarked to cover 2001 costs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is trying to persuade the European Union Council of Ministers to slap an import ban on poultry, poultry meat and eggs imports from California, where there is an outbreak of Newcastle Disease, while accepting these products from other parts of the United States.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission announced yesterday (Thursday) that it would provide Euro 1.4 million (Pounds 840,000) – or half the total cost – of a Euro 2.8

million (Pounds 1.7million) campaign to promote European wines in the US. The other half will be met by French and Spanish wine organisations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SPANISH government is seeking to head off a move at the European Parliament to persuade the European Commission that Spain’s ambitious national hydrological plan breaks European Union (EU) environmental legislation and so should not be eligible for funding from Brussels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the acquisition by Germany’s mining and technology group RAG of German speciality chemicals company Degussa AG, so long as RAG sells its Italian, Spanish and German plants making naphtalene sulfonate, an important concrete input.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States has lifted a ban it imposed last December last year on imports of Spanish clementines because cargoes had been infected with fruit flies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MICROSOFT, Vodafone, Oracle, AT&T, Nokia, Verizon, IBM and other telecoms related companies have joined a protest statement coordinated by the International Chamber of Commerce against a Spanish law restricting e-commerce.

Spain is not only requiring commercial websites based on its territory to register with its government, but also to insist that Spanish ISP’s block access to site that are deemed threatening to the country’s defence, public order, consumer rights or other values.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NEW “smart card” for health and safety to be launched in the UK next year could have important implications for insurance companies in the occupational safety and health field. The so-called Prevencard is being marketed by the Spanish company Grupo Prevencard International using technology developed under the EU’s 5th Framework Programme for research.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SMART cards for health are not exactly a novelty but the Prevencard to be launched in the UK next year uses some particularly smart technology.

Prevencard, which is being marketed by the Spanish company Grupo Prevencard International, is a commercial application of security research carried out under the EU’s 5th Framework Programme for research.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has taken an important step towards giving EU water legislation more teeth, by moving against Belgium’s system of “tacit approvals” of pollution. Belgian law allows companies to assume that they have a right to pollute if they make an application to regulators and then receive no reply.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has cleared the way for Spain to restart subsidising investments by its hauliers into buying or hire-purchasing new lorries and vans.

Annulling a decision made by the European Commission in 1998 that blocked Madrid from helping haulage operators pay the interest on loans they raise for new vehicles, judges said Brussels was wrong to brand these payments as illegal state aid.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE SPANISH company Logista, a wholesale distributor of tobacco in Spain and Portugal, is to take joint control of Logesta Gestion de Transporte in a move that will extend Logista’s activities into freight forwarding. The European Commission has approved a deal under which Logista will share control with another Spanish company, Gestcamp, which operates in the warehousing sector among others.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has made it clear that it will not countenance the creation of certain special tax regimes within the European Union for so-called coordination centres, that provide services including banking, marketing, insurance and logistics to companies within an international group.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
THE ROMANO Prodi-led European Commission has received a mid-term report from senior environmental groups within the European Union and it contains a mixture of bouquets and brickbats. It written by the Green 8, a coalition that includes the European Environmental Bureau, the European Federation for Transport and Environment and Friends of the Earth Europe.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE EUROPEAN Commission has given the green light to a proposed joint venture between the Spanish companies, Canal de Isabel II and Hidroeléctrica del Cantábrico which will develop power supplies in Madrid, including generation, distribution and supply. Water services company Canal already provides electricity services in Madrid through its subsidiary Hidráulica de Santillana, while power company Hidroeléctrica’s base is in Asturias, in northern Spain.…

BY MARK ROWE
CAN the European Union’s single skies plan become a reality inside 30 months? It is a topical subject, with the recent crash over Germany underlining the arguments in favour and against the project, which should lead to planes flying above 28,000 feet being guided and controlled by unified units of air traffic controllers, replacing the current piecemeal system of national flight monitoring and guidance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
REVERSING its earlier position, the European Commission has agreed that the German grid feed-in laws on the promotion of electricity from renewable energy sources and from combined heat and power do not constitute state aid, that Brussels could, in theory, ban.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered the Spanish government to recover “billions of Pesatas” in state aid that it claims Madrid illegally paid porcelain manufacturer Grupo de Empresas Álvarez, (GEA), in Vigo, Galicia, although it has asked the Spaniards to work out exactly how much money is involved.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has pared back regional aid earmarked by the Spanish government to invest in Ford España’s Almusafes (Valencia) plant, ruling that Madrid should spend only Euro 11.11 million, rather than the Euro 15.74 million originally planned. The money will help the plant produce a new engine, the I4, that will power cars like the Focus and the Mondeo from 2003 onwards.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LETS face it. The reputation of the European Union for taking firm action against crime is not solid. Rather it is known for issuing waffley communiqués that say what needs to be done, without saying when or how.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MEP’s are trying to water down a strongly centralised European Union “Community Patent” system, that would grant jurisdiction over disputes to a new EU intellectual property court; instead, the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee is calling for national courts to be given the job.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL cooperation is to be stepped up to fight travel document fraud, with border authorities increasingly anxious to restrict the movement of would-be terrorists.

The European Union Council of Ministers (justice and home affairs) has agreed in principle to allow information on counterfeits to be exchanged between its working party on frontiers and false documents and Europol, Interpol, the USA and Canada.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SPANISH Presidency of the European Union has been given a mandate to negotiate a wide-ranging judicial cooperation deal with the United States that would lead to the mutual exchange of relevant data and the establishment of joint investigation teams.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LAST week a political deal was struck in Brussels on the shape of European cookie legislation. The result, in footballing terms: Lawyers 5 – IT industry 2.

On the plus side, the anti-cookie proposals of Council of Ministers, (which represents Europe’s Member States and shares the right of veto over this law with the European Parliament), have been softened, which should give some breathing room to the EU’s hard pressed Internet industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States has launched initial WTO disputes proceedings with Japan, which it claims is unfairly restricting the import of American apples. Meanwhile the US has banned the import of Spanish clementines.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CRIMINALS dream of a world without police and although such a concept might seem science-fiction, it is actually easy to commit offences away from the eyes of law enforcement: just hire a boat. On the high seas, there is no-one watching, which is why fishing crime is so common and difficult to detect.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has ruled that a Spanish clothing, footwear and headgear company should have secured European trade mark rights to the word ‘Ellos,’ regarding a mail order service, though it should not use the brand-name for their products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SPANISH government will have to defend itself at the European Court of Justice against claims by the European Commission that it has broken European Union law over tough personnel regulations, restricting the employment of air traffic controllers from other EU Member States.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved a special Tonnage Tax in Spain, where the country’s maritime shipping companies pay tax on the capacity of their ships rather than the profit or loss that they generate.

Brussels approved the plan under its EU internal market powers, because it matches policies stated in the 1997 Commission guidelines on state aid to maritime transport and its new transport white paper.…

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 KEITH NUTHALL
THE GROWING thaw in relations between Spain and Britain over the future of Gibraltar and its airport, has prompted the European Commission to retable a long-standing proposal to establish a European Union regime on the safety inspection of aircraft from non-EU countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FUTURE phytosanitary agreements between the EU and third countries should focus on “a limited number of products of undoubted importance to the parties,” said the European Commission following the emergence of a number of “practical problems” in existing deals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States has lifted a ban it imposed last December last year on imports of Spanish clementines because cargoes had been infected with fruit flies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has authorised the Spanish government to grant aid up to a maximum of Euro 1.07 billion, (ESP 178 billion), to its coal industry for the past year, (2001). Brussels has accepted the particular problems facing Spain’s coal sector – with some mines that produce coal that is competitive with imports and others that are very costly – by allowing Madrid to finance operational aid as well as structural reforms.…

Keith Nuthall
AN INTERNET legal advice service for companies wishing to learn about European Union legislation affecting e-commerce, has been launched. The site, eLexPortal.com, will provide updated information on EU and national laws and regulations on the subject; it is free of charge, and allows users to e-mail queries to its online experts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio has launched an aggressive rebuttal of claims by French trade union’s that the European Commission’s single sky initiative is an effective privatisation of air traffic management that will compromise safety standards.

The conservative Spanish commissioner said: “Let there be no misunderstanding: the purpose of the Single Sky is not to boost competition or privatise air traffic control.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNET legal advice service, providing information about European Union legislation affecting e-commerce, has been launched. The site, eLexPortal.com, will provide updated information on EU and national laws and regulations on the subject; it is free of charge, and allows users to e-mail queries to its online experts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed that the Spanish government should be authorised to levy a special 25 per cent tax on imports of tobacco into the Canary Islands, to help protect its dwindling tobacco industry; a Brussels report claimed that between 1985 and 2000, the sector shed 67 per cent of its jobs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has launched a general round at its summit in Qatar, which will include negotiations on liberalising export and import regimes for so-called industrial goods such as fish.

These talks have a final deadline of 2005 and, said the meeting’s communiqué, will try “to reduce or as appropriate eliminate tariffs, including the reduction or elimination of tariff peaks, high tariffs, and tariff escalation, as well as non-tariff barriers, in particular on products of export interest to developing countries.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SYSTEM of tax exemptions allowing French companies to deduct liability for losses incurred by subsidiaries or branches abroad breaks the European Coal and Steel Community’s Steel Aid Code, the European Commission has ruled.

Following an investigation, it has concluded that none of the exemptions provided for, such as aid for research and development, environmental protection or closures, are applicable.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
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
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched an investigation into state aid paid by the Italian government to its shellfish producers; it fears they were overcompensated for problems caused by the spread of mucilage in the Adriatic last year.

Rome paid fish farmers Euro 775,000 to cover up to 30 per cent of their losses caused by this natural jelly hindering their operations.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE PAYMENT of Euro 18 million in grants by the Spanish government in support of a Renault factory at Valladolid is to be formally investigated by the European Commission. Brussels says it fears Spain fluted EU state aid rules.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPAIN has lost two bids at the European Court of Justice to overturn the refusal by the European Commission to fully meet Spanish claims for European grants for meat subsidies, because of concerns about Madrid’s “weak” anti-fraud controls.…

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.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPAIN has lost two cases at the European Court of Justice, where it had been seeking to overturn financial penalties imposed by the European Commission, which alleged that the anti-fraud checks and controls on agricultural subsidy programmes within the country were so weak, that the EU should not fully meet Spanish claims for European grants.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HOLIDAYS and pregnancy leave are a serious business, both for the employees who take them and the employers who pay for them. Unfortunately for personnel departments who might want a little more flexibility over whether they should shell out or not, recent cases at the European Court of Justice have underlined the right of EU citizens to take paid leave, rather than erode them.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the injection of approved investment by the Spanish government into auto-maker Santana Motor SA, to improve efficiency and productivity at its Andalucia plant.

Santana Motor, a wholly owned by a subsidiary company of L’Instituto de Fomento de Andalucia, is involved in the manufacturing and sales of all terrain vehicles, some under a license with Suzuki.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PROCESS of transforming the European Union’s anti-fraud office OLAF into a truly independent operator, with enough investigative muscle and legislative teeth to make an impact in Brussels’ fight against financial crime, has proved to be a slow and difficult task, its latest report admits.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE SPANISH provinces of Valencia, Cuenca and Teruel have been freed from restrictions on the export of live pigs and porcine semen arising out of classical swine fever, the European Commission has decided. Live pig exports will only be permitted over the next 30 days if they come from CSF-free holdings however.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A STATE aid inquiry has been launched by the European Commission into concerns that restrictions on the payment of further state aid by the Spanish government to porcelain manufacturer Grupo de Empresas Álvarez, (GEA), in Vigo, Galicia, have been circumvented.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the payment by the Spanish government of subsidies of Euro 152 million to General Electric Plastics SL to set up a new polycarbonate factory in Cartagena. The new plant will cost Euro 630 million in total.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared a planned Spanish publishing joint venture between Germany’s Bertelsmann and Arnoldo Mondadori Editore SpA, of Italy, combining all the book publishing divisions and imprints in Spain and Latin America of Random House and Mondadori.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Parliament today, (Wednesday), approved the creation of a new European Aviation Safety Agency, (EASA), but extended the proposed legislation to include the setting up of a new independent authority similar to the US National Transportation Safety Board to investigate aircraft accidents and make recommendations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has dismissed a bid by a Spanish garden trade company to overturn a decision by the European Commission to refuse to pay an agreed grant, because of allegations that the firm had been involved in fraud.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has finally given EU Member States the green light to help their electricity producers meet expensive ‘stranded costs’ that were incurred before the power market was liberalised in the late 1990’s, although Eurelectric has attacked Brussels for acting too slowly.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE COMPLETION of the World Trade Organisation’s Agreement on Textiles and Clothing in 2005 will usher in a new world order for the industry, in which Europe will have to meet the challenge of unrestricted imports from major suppliers like China, India and Indonesia for the first time.…

KEITH NUTHALL
MEMBER States of the European Union have been placed under increasing political and legal pressure from both the European Commission and the European Court of Justice to improve the environmental quality of their water supplies.

France, for instance, has lost a long-running case at the ECJ, over its failure to ensure the availability of sufficiently clean drinking water in Brittany.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has opened a formal investigation into state aid provided by the Spanish government for the restructuring of copper, gold and silver mining company Minas de Rio Tinto SAL, in Huelva.

In 2000, Madrid guaranteed loans of ESP 1,500 million, (Euro 9 million), which were linked to a restructuring plan to turn the company around.…

Keith Nuthall
A REARGUARD action is being fought by the European Commission to save its ambitious proposals to impose a deadline of 2005 on the complete liberalisation of the EU electricity market. Following pressure from the French government, EU governments have agreed to rule the idea out, preferring a looser deadline, although this has yet to be formally agreed at the Council of Ministers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN competition commissioner Mario Monti has complained that his hands are being tied by the weakness of European liberalisation legislation, a lack of will at Member State level to force through reforms and also the appetite of big players to press ahead with acquisitions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has opened a formal investigation into state aid provided by the Spanish government for the restructuring of copper, gold and silver mining company Minas de Rio Tinto SAL, in Huelva.

In 2000, Madrid guaranteed loans of ESP 1,500 million, (Euro 9 million), which were linked to a restructuring plan to turn the company around.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has tried to make up for its failure to strike fishing access deal with Morocco by forging an improved agreement with its north African neighbour Mauritania which Brussels claims its “the most important with a third country” that it has made.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is investigating whether Brazil has failed to stick to a promise to scrap a minumum-price regime on certain textile products, which had restricted the amount of EU exports that could enter its market.

World Trade Organisation disputes proceedings had been launched by Brussels because of the problem, which especially affected ‘home textiles,’ such as mattress ticking, carpets and rugs, with Belgian and Spanish producers being the hardest hit.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has asked the European Court of Justice to fine the Spanish government Euro 45,600-a-day, until it complies with an earlier ECJ ruling that it should implement the directive regarding its inland bathing waters. The fine would be levied until Madrid convinced the court that it had raised water quality levels to a sufficient level, as required under the bathing water directive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has banned Glaxo Wellcome’s dual pricing system in Spain, where the company requires Spanish wholesalers to pay a higher price for pharmaceuticals, which they export to other Member States, than when reselling the same products locally.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission and Morocco have failed to strike an agreement which would allow Spanish and Portuguese fishing boats to take catches in Moroccan waters, bringing to an unsuccessful end six months of detailed discussions. The result is that the previous agreement, which expired in 1999, and which allowed 500 European boats to exploit catches including tuna and shrimp, is not expected to be renewed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A GROUP of Spanish shipping lines have failed in their legal bid to overturn conditions imposed by their national government, for the right to ply routes from the mainland to island destinations. The European Court of Justice has ruled that Madrid acted legally by refusing to allow a market free-for-all in Spanish waters.…

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.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IMPORTANCE of European Union employment within the UK and other EU Member States is widely accepted and its authority is only going to grow over the next 10 years. This is because of the planned accession of eastern European countries to the European Union, meaning that EU employment directives will shape the law of their lands and that their national courts will become subject to the rulings and case law of the European Court of Justice, a key guardian of EU legislation.…

KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union health and safety laws should be extended by a new EU directive to cover the 90 per cent of fishing boats that are currently exempt from them, a report from Spanish socialist MEP Miguélez Ramos has claimed.…

Keith Nuthall
A REPORT on allegations of irregularities and fraud regarding EU subsidies paid for the production of flax in Spain, has been sent to the Spanish authorities by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). The report, which is expected to lead to criminal proceedings, has also been sent to Michaele Schreyer, the EU budget commissioner, the European Parliament and to the European Commission’s DG agriculture.…