Search Results for: European Parliament

BY ALAN OSBORN
MINISTERS of the 15 European Union countries have reached agreement on the Trans-European Energy Networks directive. The ministers have essentially supported the Commission proposal of last year and Brussels officials predicted that the European Parliament will do likewise later this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SPECIAL exemption for the insurance sector from European Union laws insisting on free and unfettered competition between companies in Europe is to be extended, albeit with changes improving the rights of policy-holders and other consumers.

This ‘block exemption’ from EU competition legislation is due to expire next March 31, and the European Commission is now consulting the industry on reforms to the system that it wants to put in place on its renewal.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PLANS to impose 100 per cent retaliatory duties on US exports of ball-point, felt-tipped, fountain and stylograph pens, as well as propelling or sliding pencils, pen-holders, pencil-holders, plus caps and clips have been postponed from June 18 to September 30 after Washington started backing down and removing a number of its steel tariffs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has formally asked all European Union Member States to provide information about how they are controlling substances that damage the ozone layer. Member States were required to provide this information by the end of last year, but the data has not been submitted.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved a scheme for the development of the natural gas infrastructure in Northern Ireland that will mean supplies from the Republic of Ireland being pumped into the north for the first time. The Commission said that eventually the infrastructure may be extended to north-westerly regions of Ireland, such as Donegal, which are not currently served by natural gas and it therefore “takes a big step towards the development of an all-island natural gas infrastructure.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN AND PHILIP FINE

THE EUROPEAN Commission’s competition authority has cleared the purchase

by General Motors of a series of production and sales outlets of the South

Korean car manufacturer Daewoo.

GM is to acquire some of Daewoo’s production facilities for passenger cars

and light commercial vehicles in Korea and Vietnam together with sales

subsidiaries in Austria, the Benelux region, (Belgium, Netherlands and

Luxembourg), France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has formally asked Belgium to liberalise laws impeding laboratories from carrying out clinical analyses for patients. The Commission wants Belgium to scrap regulations insisting that for such laboratories to receive money via the country’s social insurance scheme, they have to be headed up administratively by doctors, pharmacists or chemical science graduates.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
RESTRICTIONS imposed by the French government on personal imports of standard and homeopathic medicines via the post, from other European Union Member States, are to be challenged at the European Court of Justice. The European Commission is bringing a case against Paris, claiming that the rules “constitute a disproportionate obstacle to free movement of medicinal products in the internal (EU) market.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission is developing standard models for the following-up of divestiture commitments and trustee mandates in merger cases where companies promise to sell interests to get a deal cleared by Brussels competition authorities.

The Commission said that the use of the models, which are based on the 12 years of experience since the EU’s merger regulation was first implemented, would relieve merging companies and its officials of heavy administrative demands during the so-called remedies stage in merger review procedures, where the timing of sell-offs is crucial.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
The European Court of Justice has over-ruled a government deportation order issued against the Philippine wife of a British national, stating that the husband, who operates a cross-border business in the EU, may rely on EU law to protect his wife’s rights of residence.…