Search Results for: Italian

Keith Nuthall
A REARGUARD action is being fought by the European Commission to save its ambitious proposals to impose a deadline of 2005 on the complete liberalisation of the EU electricity market. Following pressure from the French government, EU governments have agreed to rule the idea out, preferring a looser deadline, although this has yet to be formally agreed at the Council of Ministers.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has signalled that it is prepared to accept the creation of joint venture companies involving auto-makers and computer suppliers as way of handling IT within the automobile sector, by approving a deal between IBM Italia and Fiat.…

Keith Nuthall
A REPORT from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) calling for liberalisation is a little like a report from the Pope suggesting more prayer, but the world’s premier international think tank has refined its arguments regarding utilities in a recent formal recommendation to its member governments.…

KEITH NUTHALL
ITALIAN textile houses have welcomed US Congress’ adoption of reforms to America’s rules of origin for textile products, which they claimed discriminated against European Union exports and broke World Trade Organisation rules.

When implementing the Uruguay Round GATT agreement, the United States had passed a law that insisted that cotton, silk and man-made fibres fabrics entering the EU at loom state to be dyed and printed, no longer qualified as EU products when they were exported.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organisation, (FAO), has handed over 290 new fishing boats, canoes and nets to Mozambican fishermen, whose equipment was destroyed when flooding and a cyclone struck the country last year.

Its donation – funded by the Italian government – was the final stage of an FAO rehabilitation project for Inhambane, Sofala and Gaza Provinces.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE ACQUISITION by the French steel company Usinor of a controlling 55 per cent stake in Tubisud of Italy has been cleared by the European Commission. The Commission said that while the deal would increase the presence of Usinor in the Italian markets for organically coated steel sheet and the distribution of steel, it would not significantly reduce competition.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is to take Italy to the European Court of Justice, claiming that its public procurement procedures for local and state administrations hiring architects, break EU rules on fairness and openness. The Commission has raised three objections regarding the relevant Italian law, (the “1997 Karrer decree).…

Keith Nuthall
ITALY has announced that it is to join a growing band of European Union countries that want to grant special national aid for the distillation of excess wine stocks, in the teeth of opposition from the European Commission. It wants Member States to abide by the new common market organisation, which was designed to limit such production subsidies.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has decided not to oppose the granting of state aid by Italy to the Franco-Italian company ST Microelectronics for three research projects costing the equivalent of some pounds 275 million. The maximum aid permitted under EU regulations is pounds 86 million.…

Keith Nuthall
AN END to the row over slot distribution in Milan’s two international airports may be in sight, although European Commission officials have told Airports International that they are still waiting for details of an Italian government plan so that they can formally and finally settle the dispute.…