Search Results for: Belgium

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PROCESS of transforming the European Union’s anti-fraud office OLAF into a truly independent operator, with enough investigative muscle and legislative teeth to make an impact in Brussels’ fight against financial crime, has proved to be a slow and difficult task, its latest report admits.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has appealed for proposals for EU grants, which would fund technological initiatives boosting the clean and efficient use of solid fuels, notably the use of clean coal technologies by power plants to limit emissions such as carbon dioxide.…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union competition Commissioner Mario Monti has announced that Brussels is to clamp down on special tax regimes affecting financial services in 11 Member States, which it claims are probably so lax, they constitute illegal state aid payments that could unfairly favour local companies.…

KEITH NUTHALL
IN what could almost be said to be a Brussels tradition, the beginning of the long summer break at the European Commission – when officials disappear to the south of France to lap up the Mediterranean sun – is usually heralded by the announcement of a series of legal cases against Member States.…

Alan Osborne
THE EUROPEAN Agency for Safety and Health at Work has published a series of good practice case studies from around the continent, in a bid to advise companies how to improve their record in protecting employees from harm.

Called Quality of Work: New Approaches and Strategies in Occupational Safety and Health, the report is available for free and focuses on initiatives in Britain, Spain, Ireland, France, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has re-launched its civil case against Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds, teaming up from the start with Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland and Luxembourg, to scupper any further defence that the EU had no substantive complaint against the tobacco firms.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has decided to come out fighting in its row with Member States over the liberalisation of energy markets. Calling on EU Ministers and the European Parliament to “rapidly adopt” its March 2001 proposals to completely liberalise gas and electricity markets by 2005, the Commission threatened to use exceptional powers granted to it under EU treaties to pass directives and decisions on market fairness, bypassing opposition from national governments and MEPs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has re-launched its civil case against Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds, teaming up from the start with Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland and Luxembourg, to scupper any further defence that the EU had no substantive complaint against the tobacco firms.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a detailed investigation into the planned merger between Germany’s Südzucker AG and France’s Saint Louis Sucre S.A., because of concerns that the deal will harm competition in the sugar sector. A preliminary inquiry concluded there were serious concerns linked to Südzucker’s strong position in Belgium and southern Germany, where it commands a sugar market share of 70-90 per cent.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
FINNISH steel companies Rautaruukki and Outokumpu are set to benefit from European Commission funding of Euro 600,000 granted to support the distribution of steel across Europe using alternatives to road transport.

The funded transport project is part of the EU’s PACT programme, which aims to move containers and similar units away from roads to rail, sea and inland waterways.…