Search Results for: european union

KEITH NUTHALL
ASSISITANCE from the European Union to boost the development of an efficient and privately owned forestry sector in the eastern European countries wanting to become Member States is crucial, EU enterprise Commissioner Erkki Liikanen has claimed.

In a speech to the European Economic and Social Committee, he said that the move from 100 per cent state ownership of forests in these former communist countries had created a number of problems that needed to be addressed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BRITISH government is being threatened with legal action at the European Court of Justice over its alleged failure to have implemented two air pollution directives.

It has been sent legal warning letters by the European Commission for failing to notify its officials about national regulations complying with to a general directive for assessing and managing air quality, something it should have done by last July.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament’s fisheries committee has called for the EU fish processing industry to be included in the ongoing review of the European Common Fisheries Policy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed abandoning its reliance in promoting renewables as a means to secure the European Union’s energy supplies, by proposing an expensive twin-track programme that boosts energy saving initiatives as well as diversifying production through green energy reforms.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
INTERNATIONAL moves to remove the maximum permitted dose of irradiation for food could lead to a major world trade dispute, which could undermine European Union regulations, says the London-based Food Irradiation Campaign, (FIC).

A joint study by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organisation has concluded that “no upper dose limit need be imposed” as irradiated foods are deemed “wholesome throughout the technologically useful dose range.”…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development is to lend Euro 14 million to a Czech subsidiary of French agri-business company Groupe Soufflet so it can expand its malting interests in the east European country. The money will enable Malterie Soufflet République Tchéque to acquire shares in Obchodní Sladovny, the malting subsidiary of Czech company Tchecomalt Group.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission is “continuously monitoring” developments involving the accountancy firm Andersen following the collapse of the proposed merger between the firm’s non-American operations and those of KPMG, officials have told Accountancy Age.

Brussels is concerned about the implications if Andersen’s practices are picked up piecemeal by local or international firms; if parts of Andersen were sold off to other major accountancy

firms on a local basis this “could justify an inquiry” but each case would be judged on its own merits, the official said.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission is expected this month (May) to announce a proposed directive boosting co-generation, although Eurelectric thinks it may at the same time moderate earlier targets for doubling the share of energy represented by the sector.

This has already been rejected as too ambitious by the European electricity industries association and although Brussels may keep to the overall target, which would see CHP rising to 18 per cent of total energy supply, it may abandon ideas that individual requirements should be imposed on Member States.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers (transport) has approved the latest European Commission airport noise directive, accepting European Parliament technical amendments that would make the legislation tougher than originally proposed.

MEP’s had voted for changes time-limiting for 10 years an exemption allowing the noisiest aircraft registered in developing countries to continue operating in Europe, adding that these aeroplanes must be prevented from moving to new routes in the EU.…

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.…