Search Results for: European Parliament

BY KEITH NUTHALL, ALAN OSBORN, MONICA DOBIE AND PHILIP FINE

IF there is one striking characteristic about Washington’s Bush Administration, it must be its almost unprecedented ability to infuriate the entire world with its unilateralism, especially its self-serving trade policies.

For years, the US government has actually played Mary Poppins on food production subsidies, claiming that its handouts do not encourage farmers to overproduce when prices are low.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has introduced new uniform EU rules for olive oil labelling; for instance olive and other vegetable oil mixtures cannot be marketed referring to olives, unless their ingredients are at least 50 per cent olive oil.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE AVERAGE consumer that tucks into a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia or Chunky Monkey has no idea that this supposedly quaint, hippy-dippy company that started out of an old garage in the beautiful landscape of America’s Vermont Green Mountains, is really owned by the nemesis of such small companies – a faceless multinational – in this case, Unilever.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has authorised the British government to grant Euro 9 million to eight coal production businesses, which can be used to offset operating losses in 2001 and January to July this year. The aid is intended to improve their economic viability by reducing production costs.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
Motorists buying cars in a different EU country from their own will find it easier to get short-term insurance cover for the journey home under a proposed new directive announced by the European Commission today (Monday.) Brussels said this would help people buy cars wherever in the EU they could find the best value and help stimulate cross-border competition in the vehicle market.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
PROPOSED EU legislation on the labelling of food and food products made from genetically modified organisms, (GMO’s), has been significantly toughened by the environment committee of the European Parliament.

Its members have approved an amendment requiring that the words “this product is derived from an animal fed with GM feed” or “this product contains (an ingredient) derived from an animal fed with GM feed” appear on the label or in any advertising for a product associated with GM technology.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has formally ordered that short-chain chlorinated paraffins not be sold for use in the fat liquoring of leather, whether as substances, constituents of other substances, or in preparations where concentrations are higher than one per cent.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
STATE aid payments made to the aviation industry in Norway and Iceland, to enable companies to afford war insurance cover since the September 11 attacks, have been approved by the Surveillance Authority of the European Free Trade Area, (EFTA).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE LITHUANIAN government has agreed to close its Soviet-era nuclear plant at Ignalina after the European Union said it would help fund decommissioning. Although the amount of subsidy has yet to be agreed, the aid promise prompted Vilnius to announce the closure of unit 1 before 2005 and unit 2 by 2009.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank has drawn up plans to lend up to Euro 62 million to the City of Leipzig, in Germany, funding preparatory ground-works for an industrial park, which would include a new car manufacturing plant. The factory would be completed by 2004 in the north of the city on old farmland, renamed Industriepark Leipzig Nord.…