Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union is pressing for the ongoing World Trade Organisation round in agricultural goods to lead to a reduction in export credits for food products, that are currently unregulated by world trade rules.

EU chief negotiator David Roberts has offered to maybe trim Europe’s export subsidies under a new WTO Agreement on Agriculture, if other countries – notably the USA – consider reducing loans such as export credits.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has allowed Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Spain to pay special income aid worth a total of some Euro 418 million, (about Pounds 250 million), to beef producers suffering losses between November 2000 and June 2001 because of the BSE crisis.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union has been pressing its trading partners to loosen the emergency import restrictions that they imposed on EU meat products at the height of the foot and mouth crisis, because of the clear evidence that the outbreak is under control.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has come down heavily on the side of the European Commission over the issue of vaccination against foot and mouth disease. Brussels is well within its legal rights to ban the practice throughout the 15 Member States, the court says.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE BEEF market in the European Union has worsened since the spring when “promising” signs of recovery had been detected, the European agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler has said, in a reversal of recent previously optimistic comments. The positive trend at that time “seems to have stopped and prices have somewhat worsened,” Mr Fischler told ministers at the agriculture council this week (24th July).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission’s deadline of evaluating by July 2003 the safety of the 800-plus active substances used in EU pesticides will be missed, with Brussels asking ministers and MEPs to extend the completion date to 2008.

Health and consumer affairs Commissioner David Byrne has admitted that when the EU agreed Directive 91/414 on the authorisation, use and control of plant protection products – insecticides, fungicides, herbicides etc.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has opened consultations on how the EU’s detergents legislation can be tightened. In particular it seeks better ways to control the biodegradability of surfactants, (materials reducing surface tension), which can create foam in water supplies, and wants mandatory information for consumers on the content of detergent and cleaning products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has clarified its plans to propose a directive on environmental liability this year; Brussels is inviting comments on a new working paper, which could see chemical companies being forced to pay for the removal of serious pollution.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
BRITAIN has been formally threatened with legal action by the European Commission over its failure to introduce national legislation fully implementing the EU’s Hazardous Waste Directive. Brussels said that the UK was at fault over its legal definition of hazardous waste – which did not match that of the EU – and added that the ban on the mixing of hazardous wastes, outlined in the directive, “has not been fully implemented in Gibraltar or Northern Ireland.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has decided to expand its list of chemicals formally labelled as hazardous wastes, by including waste containing dangerous chlorophylls and dangerous silicon. These will now be subject to tight controls on their disposal.…