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.
SLOVAKIA LOAN
BY KEITH NUTHALL
PLANS to lend the Slovakian government Euro 30 million to help its water sector abide by European Union environmental standards have been drawn up by the European Investment Bank. The loan would fund the design, supervision and construction of priority investment schemes in water supply and wastewater collection and treatment.…
SLOVENIA LOAN
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development is debating plans to loan Euro 45 million to Slovenian local banks who would on-lend the money to private and public projects reducing water pollution flowing into the country’s portion of the Danube basin.…
POLAND - EBRD
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development is planning to lend Euro 52.5 million in Polish Zloty to Poland’s El-Viv Telecom Sp. z o.o., to provide acquisition finance to its planned new owners, a consortium of private equity investors including Hicks Muse Tate and Furst, Emerging Markets Partnership (Europe) and Argus Capital Partners.…
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed reforms to the European Union’s (EU) intellectual property rights regime, which would force Member States to incorporate best practice into their regulations against counterfeiting and piracy. Its proposed directive for instance would require all EU governments to provide for injunctions halting the sale of counterfeit or pirate goods, undertake precautionary seizures of suspected offenders’ bank accounts, grant evidence-gathering powers for judicial authorities and adopt powers to force offenders to pay damages to right holders.…
CORRUPTION CONVENTION
BY KEITH NUTHALL
JUDGES and jurors across the continent of Europe should in future be protected from corruption by their national governments in all legal cases, under an extension of a Criminal Law Convention on Corruption that has been agreed by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.…
VODKA WINDSCREEN CLEANER
BY MARK ROWE
RUSSIAN entrepreneur Oleg Udolin is making windscreen-cleaning fluid out of contraband vodka in a neat reversal of the traditional Russian penchant for drinking anti-freeze. The man’s company extracts ethyl alcohol under licence from bottles of vodka confiscated by police and customs.…
ECJ DESIGNATION CASE
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has dismissed claims that European law allows governments to automatically ban the use in wine brands of geographical designations that are not specifically protected because of concerns that they may mislead consumers into thinking vintages are from traditional wine-making regions.…
WINE SALE CAMPAIGN
BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission announced yesterday (Thursday) that it would provide Euro 1.4 million (Pounds 840,000) – or half the total cost – of a Euro 2.8
million (Pounds 1.7million) campaign to promote European wines in the US. The other half will be met by French and Spanish wine organisations.…
EFSA BUDGET
BY KEITH NUTHALL
NO solution has yet been reached to the problem over the freezing of half the European Food Safety Authority’s budget for 2003 by the European Parliament. The new EFSA executive director Geoffrey Podger told journalists in January this was worrying but “several things have to be done at once and it’s a mistake to concentrate on one.”…
FISH QUOTAS
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EU Council of Ministers has approved sharply reduced total allowable catch (TAC) quotas for cod, haddock and whiting (which are caught together) for the North Sea, the Irish Sea, west of Scotland and the Skagerrak waters closer to Norway.…