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BY KEITH NUTHALL
EXISTING European Union countries could share Euro 6.5 billion savings in reduced environmental costs once eastern European countries have become Member States and have adopted EU directives, a Brussels report has claimed. It said that resulting reductions in trans-boundary air pollution would benefit current EU Member States and other neighbouring countries to this great extent.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ENVIRONMENTAL crimes are in many ways the most damaging of offences, given that they can harm millions of people, whether through damaging the ozone layer, increasing pollution levels or damaging biodiversity. They are also hard to pinpoint and investigate and it is for these reasons that the Milan-based United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, (UNICRI), has published a study on this modern scourge.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has called on food safety experts to bid for contracts worth Euro 39 million to stage studies funded by the EU’s outgoing Fifth Framework Programme for research. Brussels says it will fund work on detection tests for infectious and toxic agents in the food chain and on ways to eliminate them.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AGREEMENT in principle has been secured at the European Union Council of Ministers over a directive that will limit noise and air pollution from recreational boats and jet skis in the EU. The proposal has been developed over concerns about the effect of motor-boats on lakes and coastal areas, “where low noise levels are a significant but scarce natural resource.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
DESPITE its rejection by America, the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has now been agreed and is set to move towards ratification and implementation within two years. Ministers from 180 countries reached a compromise deal over the treaty after lengthy negotiations in Marrakesh, Morocco at the week-end (finished on Saturday 10th).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has called on food safety experts to bid for contracts worth Euro 39 million to stage studies funded by the EU’s outgoing Fifth Framework Programme for research. Brussels says it will fund work on detection tests for infectious and toxic agents in the food chain and on ways to eliminate them.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AGREEMENT in principle has been secured at the European Union Council of Ministers over a directive that will limit noise and air pollution from recreational boats and jet skis in the EU. The proposal has been developed over concerns about the effect of motor-boats on lakes and coastal areas, “where low noise levels are a significant but scarce natural resource.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
DESPITE its rejection by America, the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has now been agreed and is set to move towards ratification and implementation within two years. Ministers from 180 countries reached a compromise deal over the treaty after lengthy negotiations in Marrakesh, Morocco at the week-end (finished on Saturday 10th).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Authority should play a key role in seeking to allay the fears of European Union consumers about purchasing genetically modified foodstuffs, a senior official within the European Commission has claimed. The director general of the Commission’s directorate general for health and consumer protection, Robert Coleman, told a round table in Brussels that the unwillingness of EU consumers to buy GM food is because many are no longer “convinced by….…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU ministers have backed the initial stages of development of the GMES, (global monitoring for environment and security), project, where observation satellites will work alongside ground level sensors to collect environmental data. The idea is that it will help the EU form policies on climate change, sustainable development, scientific research and the management of natural disasters such as floods.…