Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
Following a decision today (Wednesday) by the European Commission, the way has been cleared for the sale of the French parcel and equipment delivery company Sernam to the transport company Geodis, also French. The Commission said the French government would be allowed to proceed with restructuring aid of about FF 2.9 billion (pounds 270 million) to Sernam, a subsidiary of the state owned railway company SNCF.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Shippers Council has welcomed a decision by the European Commission to issue a statement of objections to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) over its cargo tariff consultations. The Commission says that the IATA consultations restrict competition “and are no longer indispensable to provide customers with efficient interlining services within the EEA.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced an in-depth investigation into a planned online travel agency to be formed by the internet service

provider T-Online, and the travel companies TUI and C&N (Neckermann), which could lead to Brussels blocking the deal on competition grounds.…

KEITH NUTHALL
DISCRIMINATORY landing fees in European Union airports, favouring local carriers over those from other EU Member States, have been abolished across the continent according to the European Commission. This follows six years of competition inquiries staged by its officials into the problem.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE COOPERATION agreement signed between Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines is facing an uncertain future, with the European Commission threatening to withhold regulatory approval because of concerns that it would damage competition in the German and Austrian travel market.

In a statement, the Commission claimed that it has reached a preliminary conclusion that the deal “would eliminate competition on a large number of routes between Austria and Germany.”…

BY SIMON WILCOX, in Singapore
IN a dim and distant era before electronics and semiconductors, Singapore was a tiny backwater in the Malay kingdom of Johor-Riau, its inhabitants depending on jungle produce, fishing, small-scale trading and a little piracy for their livelihood.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has asked the European Court of Justice to fine the Spanish government Euro 45,600-a-day, until it complies with an earlier ECJ ruling that it should implement the directive regarding its inland bathing waters. The fine would be levied until Madrid convinced the court that it had raised water quality levels to a sufficient level, as required under the bathing water directive.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced that it is to fund a Euro 120,000 research project examining ways of further reducing carbon dioxide emissions from light commercial vehicles, (category N1). Brussels has called on companies and think tanks to bid for the contract to carry out the studies.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has demanded the immediate introduction of

a uniform driving “attestation” for drivers from non-EU countries using roads in the EU. MEP’s said that this should certify that the driver met the employment conditions of the country where he or she was operating.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations World Food Programme has launched an unprecedented health awareness campaign to persuade Ethiopian truckers to reduce their sexual promiscuity, because of the risk that they will be struck down by AIDS.

The programme will focus on the 2,300 Ethiopian truck drivers that it has hired to deliver relief food from the port of Djibouti to the interior of their war and drought ravaged country, which is also a centre of AIDS infection; estimates say that 10.6 per cent of the population is HIV positive.…