Search Results for: european union

Keith Nuthall
THE UNITED States government has informed the disputes settlement body of the World Trade Organisation that it “intended to comply” with the final Havana Club ruling issued at the start of this year, although it warned diplomats that it “would require for that purpose a reasonable period of time.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MEMBER States of the European Union and the European Economic Area (EEA), (Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein), should not charge higher VAT on foreign language books than they do on books in native tongues, the court of the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) has ruled.…

Keith Nuthall
A BRUSSELS convention reviewing the EU’s Financial Services Action Plan has concluded that in the wake of the Enron scandal the European Commission should redouble its efforts to make sure that European legislation underpins anti-corruption safeguards such as auditor independence.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SPLIT has emerged in the European Union Council of Ministers over the possible scrapping of subsidies to tobacco producers under a possible review the common market regime, which should happen this year. On one side in a debate at a recent agriculture council were a group including many of the EU’s tobacco growing countries, (Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, France, Greece, Spain and Portugal), who are opposed to cuts, whilst other Member States, (notably Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden), backed a recital to a current proposal to adjust subsidies over the next two years that calls on the EU to review the regime this year “to allow the progressive deletion of subsidies.”…

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
THE EXPOSURE of European Union citizens to man-made radiation increased by about 76 per cent between 1987 and 1996, a new European Commission report has claimed, citing discharges from reprocessing plants in Britain (Sellafield) and Normandy, France, (Cap de la Hague) as the “most important” sources of this pollution increase.…

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
EU health and consumer affairs Commissioner David Byrne has thrown a lyrical punch at Japan Tobacco International, which has taken the European Commission to the European Court of Justice over its restrictions on “light” and “low tar” descriptors.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PUBLIC sale of printing inks containing dangerous chemicals named on a new European Commission blacklist could be banned from April 2003. Brussels wants ministers to amend a directive restricting chemicals deemed carcinogenic, or harmful to genes and reproduction, by adding 43 more ingredients, some used in ink.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union companies alerting European Commission investigators about cartels of which they form a part, will find it easier to escape scot-free from their crimes in future, because of a new so-called “leniency policy” launched by Brussels to promote whistle-blowing.…