Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH the European Union’s eastern border set to move a few 100 miles eastwards on May 1 next year, preparations are under way to set up tough frontier controls against the food hygiene badlands of Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has offered to open up the European Union’s market in environmental services to suppliers based outside the EU, as part of the ongoing Doha Development Round at the World Trade Organisation.

If its trading partners offer adequate concessions in return, Brussels is offering to remove regulatory restrictions to foreign providers of waste water, sanitation, solid and hazardous waste management, soil clean-ups, air pollution reduction and similar services.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FRENCH government has proposed a summit of G8 environment ministers, the creation of a strong World Environment Organisation, which would take over the responsibilities of the United Nations Environment Programme as well as those of environmental departments amongst other multilateral agencies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
COMPARED with the years of tortuous wrangling that slowed the adoption of the first – and legally abortive – European Union (EU) tobacco advertising directive, the EU Council of Ministers has speedily approved its replacement.

The council has accepted amendments tabled by the European Parliament and approved the legislation on its first reading, with Germany and Britain voting against.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is taking the unusual step of taking the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers to court to try and force it to toughen moves to criminalise environmental offences across the EU.

Ministers in January adopted an EU Decision – without referring to other European institutions – that calls on Member States to criminalise wilful and negligent pollution, but leaves flexibility on what kind of offence is made a crime and on how it should be punished.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is dragging its feet over approving Euro 21 million of British government subsidies for the recycling industry, because the money could be spent in richer areas of the UK. It has however approved a Euro 16.5 million portion of the government’s Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP), which will be more focused on assisted regions.…

Keith Nuthall
BRITONS work the longest hours in the European Union (EU), even though working time agreed in collectively agreements is below the EU average, according to a survey by the European Union’s European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is investigating state aid of Euro 1 million paid by the German government to stationary giant Herlitz, to prevent a subsidiary – Falken Office Products – from going insolvent. Brussels fears this payment may have broken European Union state aid rules.…

BY RICHARD HURST
NATURAL resources giant Anglo American has recently announced that its wholly owned forest products subsidiary, Mondi South Africa, is to proceed with a US$220 million expansion and modernisation of its Richards Bay pulp mill in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, increasing its capacity for bleached eucalyptus pulp production by some 40 per cent.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A LARGE step has been made by the European Commission towards guaranteeing non-European Union lawyers and law firms the right to establish themselves in any EU Member State, with this principle, (hedged by some exemptions), being offered at the World Trade Organisation’s Doha Development Round.…