Search Results for: Netherlands

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has ruled that the Netherlands, and by precedent other Member States, has the right to prevent lawyers entering into multi-disciplinary partnerships with accountants, even though it accepts that this may restrict competition in legal services.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE MARITIME Museum of Finland and Britain’s Mary Rose Trust have teamed up with four other archeological groups to explore four important European shipwrecks, creating what will be a virtual exhibition of their findings.

Internet sites will publish pictures and information about the sites, which include:

*A late 13th Century cog, (small, trade vessel), off Mecklenburg, Germany;

*The Vrouw Maria, a Dutch sailing ship that sank off Finland in 1771, carrying artworks and treasures from Amsterdam to St Petersburg for Catherine the Great.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS acts of international largesse go, the expansion of the European Union eastwards and southwards must rank as being one of the most generous in history. With research estimates claiming that the size of the EU budget will soar to accommodate the needs of the former communist republics, (plus Cyprus and Malta), we are talking Marshall Plan here; billions of Euro’s being transferred from national coffers in western Europe to the east, via Brussels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A HEALTHY market in the use of waste oil as a fuel to generate electricity is being promoted in the European Union through excise duty exemptions, erected in the face of official EU environmental policy, a new European Commission report says.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE CO-GENERATION of electricity from waste oil is being promoted in the European Union through excise duty exemptions, which have been erected in the face of official EU environmental policy, a new European Commission report says.

Its “Critical Review of Existing Studies and Life Cycle Analysis on the Regeneration and Incineration of Waste Oils” points out that Council Directive 75/439/EC on Waste Oils tries to make Member States prioritise regeneration over burning.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SPLIT has emerged in the European Union Council of Ministers over the possible scrapping of subsidies to tobacco producers under a possible review the common market regime, which should happen this year. On one side in a debate at a recent agriculture council were a group including many of the EU’s tobacco growing countries, (Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, France, Greece, Spain and Portugal), who are opposed to cuts, whilst other Member States, (notably Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden), backed a recital to a current proposal to adjust subsidies over the next two years that calls on the EU to review the regime this year “to allow the progressive deletion of subsidies.”…

KEITH NUTHALL
A COMPREHENSIVE reform of the European Union’s VAT package for travel agents has been proposed by the European Commission, which would change the special rules that apply for the sector. Because their services are often consumed in a foreign Member States where different sales tax rates can apply, travel agents are allowed to pay VAT on the profits that they make rather than handing over the VAT charged directly on services that they supply, minus the VAT they paid when incurring allowable business expenses.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL organisation is to be set up later this year to help developing country governments negotiate better deals for drug access, as well as helping local researchers to protect their ideas from being poached. The MIHR, (Management of Intellectual property in Health Research and development), will be set up by public health and intellectual property experts from Britain and the Netherlands, with the assistance of experts from Asia, Africa, south America and north America.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced a new Euro 149.2 million financing scheme under its Interreg programme, which can help local and regional authorities deal with problems in border areas. In this case, the Commission has identified the North Sea as a frontier zone, with money being made available until 2006 for transnational co-operation between coastal areas in Britain, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE NETHERLANDS government has been authorised to grant its national horticulture industry another six years of breaks from its energy tax on natural gas. The European Commission – which must approve special subsidies of this kind in the EU – has allowed the scheme to run until 2007.…