Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ESTABLISHMENT of a European Union Advisory Committee on Safety, Hygiene and Health Protection at Work has been approved; it will help the European Commission prepare health and safety initiatives and boost cooperation between national health and safety administrations, trade unions and employers’ organisations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INSURANCE companies have been asked to subscribe to a European Road Safety Charter, committing them to back measures reducing road accidents. The move is part of a seven-year plan to improve road safety in the European Union that has been launched by the European Commission; it aims to halve the number of people killed in road accidents annually across the EU from 40,000 to 20,000 by 2010.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
SRI Lanka Insurance Corporation officials are assessing catastrophic losses that have hit the country’s tea industry which have been wrought by flooding devastating low-lying plantations. Early estimates predict that the island’s economy could lose as much as SLRupees 2.8 billion (US$28.79 million) because of the disaster.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE TRANSPORT committee of the European Parliament has approved proposals by the European Commission to reduce pedestrian death and injury on the roads at speeds up to 40 kph but wants the legislation extended to deal with “pre-crash, in-crash and post-crash safety of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament is preparing to strengthen the proposed European Union (EU) directive on environmental liability, which is designed to ensure that polluters pay for damage that they cause through intent or negligence.

MEP’s on the parliament’s legal affairs and internal market committee are supporting amendments that would extend the scope of this legislation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NEW report on accountancy fraud has found that US companies are so desperate to inflate their earnings they are prepared to pay millions of dollars in tax on this fantasy income. Is this the ultimate example of pure greed trampling over common sense or are such businesses once more ahead of the game?…

BY ALAN OSBORN
BRITAIN heads the European Union league for productivity in computer and related services, with an added value output per person employed in the sector of Euro 37,000 (about Pounds 24,300) compared to the average for the 15 member countries of Euro 32,000.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union is continuing to raise far more in revenue than it spends out on its policies and programmes, with the European Commission revealing a budget surplus of Euro 7.4 billion for 2002. That said, the excess money – which will be rolled over and reduce contributions required from Member States in the current year – is lower than it was in the previous two 12 month periods; Euro 15 billion in 2001 and Euro 11.6 billion in 2000.…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have signalled that they are preparing to cave into Italian government blackmail tying its agreement to a proposed comprehensive tax package to the waiving of fines levied on Italian milk producers for exceeding their common agricultural policy quotas.…

Keith Nuthall
SEVERAL thousand small and medium-sized companies throughout the EU

are to be exempted from certain accounting provisions following agreement

by European ministers on raising the qualifying thresholds. Under EU rules both small and medium sized companies are permitted to publish only an abridged balance sheet, abridged notes to the accounts and an abridged profit and loss account while small companies are further exempted from publishing a profit and loss account or an

annual report, from disclosing certain types of information in their

accounts and from having their accounts audited.…