Search Results for: European Parliament

KEITH NUTHALL
BELGIAN power utilities Electrabel and SPE will continue to receive subsidies from their national government allowing them to promote the development of renewables, even though the country’s electricity system has been liberalised.

The European Commission has ruled that the companies had an ongoing commitment to boost green electricity that stemmed from the time when Belgium had a controlled electricity market and has therefore branded it as a “stranded cost.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered a feasibility project studying the possible establishment in Brussels of an inter-institutional library for European Union organisations. This would house documents of relevance to the Commission, the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the EU Committee of the Regions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL cooperation is to be stepped up to fight travel document fraud, with border authorities increasingly anxious to restrict the movement of would-be terrorists.

The European Union Council of Ministers (justice and home affairs) has agreed in principle to allow information on counterfeits to be exchanged between its working party on frontiers and false documents and Europol, Interpol, the USA and Canada.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
The European Commission and OLAF are again deciding how to handle allegations about professional wrongdoing in Brussels by EU whistleblower Paul van Buitenen. This time, instead of being suspended, the official was given eight week’s grace from regular duties and a special office to compile his brief.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FINAL stage of the new EU procedure to approve orphan drugs has been completed, with the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products, (EMEA), publishing the first summaries of positive opinions regarding these specialist medicines. Under the procedure, which promotes the development of orphan drugs by granting pharmaceutical companies special intellectual property rights, publication follows official designation of a medicine by the European Commission.…

Keith Nuthall
THE REPUBLIC of Ireland has been sent a final legal warning note alleging that its government has failed to implement a EU scheme for monitoring CO2 emissions from new passenger cars. Under the scheme, Member States are supposed to send data to the European Commission annually, with the deadline for producing the first information report being July 1, 2001.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LITHUANIA is trying to pressure the European Union into paying it massive financial support for decommissioning Ignalina nuclear power plant by 2009, which Brussels is demanding as a condition for allowing Vilnius to join the EU. In ongoing accession negotiations, Lithuania claims it cannot afford to carry out the work, estimating that it will cost Euro 3 billion.…

Keith Nuthall
AUTOMOBILE industry products and components from the United States will be a focus of retaliatory tariffs imposed by the European Union because of Washington’s controversial ‘safeguard’ duties protecting the American steel industry.

The European Commission has asked EU ministers to approve a selected range of products, where the levying of duty will cause pain to US exporters.…

Keith Nuthall
GIBRALTAR has beaten off an attempt by the European Commission to brand illegal a tax break that it allows for certain “exempt” companies. The British colony won a case at the European Court of Justice, where it claimed that Brussels had wrongfully claimed that by reducing these companies’ tax burden, they were in effect granting them state aid in contravention of EU directives limiting such payments.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LAST week a political deal was struck in Brussels on the shape of European cookie legislation. The result, in footballing terms: Lawyers 5 – IT industry 2.

On the plus side, the anti-cookie proposals of Council of Ministers, (which represents Europe’s Member States and shares the right of veto over this law with the European Parliament), have been softened, which should give some breathing room to the EU’s hard pressed Internet industry.…