Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SWEDEN has the highest European Union unit labour costs in the combined tobacco, food and drinks industries, according to a report from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency; its average for the latest available comparable figures (year 2000) was Euro 38,000.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
GERMANY has been preventing a collective acceptance by the 15 EU countries on the United Nations Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. As in the negotiations at the World Health Organisation over the convention, at EU Council of Ministers meetings Germany has stood out, (mirroring the US position), against key aspects of the text, notably the ban on tobacco advertising.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NEUROTICS and introverts often find it harder to quit smoking than extroverted happy people, according to research from the University of Warwick, England. It suggests that improving the social skills of these smokers may be more effective as an anti-smoking aid than a nicotine patch.…

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
INVESTIGATIONS coordinated by EU anti-fraud agency OLAF led to arrests of seven smugglers for illicitly shipping tobacco from the Baltic States to the Netherlands, where 10.35 million black-market cigarettes were seized. Three Latvian smugglers were also arrested – in Germany – and 4 million smuggled cigarettes were found in Belgium, near 35 tonnes of illicit hand-rolling tobacco.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Commission officials have codified and simplified the complicated legislation controlling the European Union common market organisation for raw tobacco. Their new composite EU regulation is being submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval. Its aim is to make following its terms simpler and easier to understand for tobacco industry managers and regulators.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SWEDEN has the highest European Union unit labour costs in the combined tobacco, food and drinks industries, according to a report from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency; its average for the latest available comparable figures (year 2000) was Euro 38,000.…

Keith Nuthall
THE USA government signed a bilateral textile pact with Vietnam that gives the south-east Asian country generous access to the US market. The American Textile Manufacturers’ Institute is angry at its government for granting Vietnam an estimated US$2 billion (Pounds 1.24 billion) in access to a domestic sector that saw 3,000 jobs lost in the last quarter.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
TEXTILE manufacture incurs the lowest labour costs of any industry in the European Union (EU) according to figures (for 2000) released by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency. Labour costs per employee in textiles were Euro 21,000 (Pounds 14,500) compared to an average of Euros 35,000 for the whole manufacturing sector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SENIOR European Commission official has attacked calls by environmental groups that the ongoing review of EU treaties should abolish Euratom. François Lamoureux, Commission energy and transport director general said its main provisions should be preserved in reforms proposed this summer by the European Convention, the body tasked with renewing the EU’s administrative structure.…