Archive
International News Services archives articles supplied to clients one year or more after initial publication. These articles are protected by a password and not made available to readers without permission from clients. They are used as a background resource by agency journalists. Upon client requests, International News Services will remove such articles from the archive or not upload them in the first place. They are included to demonstrate the breadth of topics undertaken by the agency and also to help promote clients’ coverage.
BROADBAND DEBATE
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has signalled that it is prepared to raid Brussels’ public purse to create widespread broadband telecommunications networks across Europe, if private financing falls short of the task. Andrew Houghton, broadband project officer for the Commission’s directorate general for the information society, told the recent European Union Eurescom telecoms summit: “Where markets don’t work, subsidies to develop the infrastructure make sense.”…
BELGIUM - ECJ
BY ALAN OSBORN
BELGIUM has failed to comply with the universal service and interoperability provisions of the 1997 EU directive on telecommunications interconnection directive, the European Court of Justice has ruled. It has found in favour of the European Commission which brought a case against the Belgian government, charging that it had failed to introduce rules to monitor and verify compliance by telecommunication operators with mandatory cost accounting systems, as required by the directive.…
UK ENERGY EFFICIENCY
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BRITISH government has been given permission by the European Commission to extend its Energy Efficiency Best Practice Programme, which supplies GBPounds 17 million a year in grants to encourage the development and take-up of energy efficient and low carbon technologies.…
UNESCO FUND
BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE’S Suez and the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) have launched a joint drinking water improvements programme that will provide around Euro 300,000 in its first three years and will initially concentrate on the Volga-Caspian region.…
KYOTO LATEST
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has taken a significant step towards the creation of a European Union (EU) greenhouse gas emissions trading system, as signatory governments of the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Convention gathered to meet in New Delhi this week, (October 23 to November 1).…
E DEVELOPMENT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
A GROUNDBREAKING development aid scheme has been launched with the support of the European Commission, which specifically promotes the development of Internet networks and related e-commerce in poorer areas of Europe. The Euro 4.35 million e-MINDER scheme will target Cyprus, Galicia, (Spain), and Pomerania, (Poland), pump-priming small and medium-sized businesses to develop e-commerce projects, boosting regional economies.…
DENMARK EIB
BY KEITH NUTHALL
PLANS have been developed at the European Investment Bank to lend Denmark’s second city Aarhus Euro 100 million to build a combined heat and power municipal incineration plant and also make improvements to its drinking water supply and waste water systems.…
CYPRUS EIB
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank is lending Euro 100 million to the Electricity Authority of Cyprus to help it improve its electricity transmission and distribution networks. The loan will help finance 19 transmission schemes and a larger number of distribution schemes throughout the Greek part of the island.…
ENERGY EFFICIENT BUILDINGS
BY KEITH NUTHALL
EURELECTRIC has welcomed the long-awaited final agreement reached over a proposed European Union directive on the energy efficiency of new and renovated houses, saying that it will push electricity producers into adopting a more profitable strategy of value-added service provision.…
GREECE STRANDED COSTS
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has authorised the Greek government to pay the part-privatised Public Power Corporation of Greece up to Euro 1.431 billion in compensation for so-called ‘stranded costs,’ liabilities incurred when the Greek energy market was regulated and publicly controlled.…