Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union utilities are a significant step closer to being freed of red tape when buying in goods and services, with the approval by the EU Council of Ministers of a liberalisation package on public procurement procedures.

Agreement has been a long time coming, with the proposed utilities directive being tabled by the European Commission in 2000.…

BY SIGRÚN DAVÍDSDOTTIR
AN HEP plant designed to power a new aluminium smelter, the first constructed by Alcoa Inc. in twenty years, is under preparation in eastern Iceland. The plant would produce 285,000 tonnes of aluminium a year. At the same time Alcoa is closing down two plants in the US and reducing production in a third.…

BY SIGRÚN DAVÍDSDOTTIR
THE ICELAND parliament, the Althing, is struggling to pass a bill based on the EU electricity liberalisation directive, which tries to boost competition the sector. The government is set on passing it, but the bill is meeting a strong opposition in wide circles, claiming it is inappropriate for Iceland.…

BY SIGRÚN DAVÍDSDOTTIR
THE ICELAND parliament, the Althing, is struggling to pass a bill based on the EU electricity liberalisation directive, which tries to boost competition the sector. The government is set on passing it, but the bill is meeting a strong opposition in wide circles, claiming it is inappropriate for Iceland.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank has drawn up plans to lend Britain’s National Grid Euro 200 million to help it finance its Euro 1 billion multi-annual investment programme to renew, reinforce and extend England and Wales’ transmission system.

Assuming the loan is approved by the bank’s board, the money would help pay for new connections, including distributed and renewable generation, as well as initiatives to reduce power losses.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Agency for Reconstruction is spending Euro 50 million on rehabilitating the A3 block of Serbia’s Nikola Tesla A power station, the largest in the country. This project will involve 350 people working over the next eight months, and is the largest EU-funded initiative so far to improve the Yugoslav republic’s energy sector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN AGREEMENT involving UK-based EDF Trading supplying gas to German wholesale company Wingas for 10 years, with a possible five-year extension, have been approved retrospectively by the European Commission’s competition directorate general. Brussels approved the deal for the supplies, (which began in 1998), after the companies agreed to amend their contracts, to block restrictions on other wholesalers being supplied by EdF Trading.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed the creation of an EU security of supply system for gas, involving Member States maintaining adequate stocks to cover shortfalls and circulating supplies. Brussels is also proposing improvements to the existing EU oil security system.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed a new directive to cover takeover bids in the EU that will allow, among other things, a majority shareholder to require minority holders to sell him their securities while empowering minority shareholders to require the majority holder to buy them out.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GHANDI would have approved. Peaceful protest has long been a political weapon, and rights of public assembly and demonstration protect its use. But on the Internet? Italian Radical Euro MP Marco Cappato wants the concept of cyber-civil-disobedience to be written into European law, allowing protesters to be naughty online, as long as it’s in a good cause.…