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BY KEITH NUTHALL
The European Commission announced today (Thursday) that after three days of intensive negotiations an “historic” agreement has been reached with China on maritime transport. The deal is based “on the principles of freedom to provide services, free access to cargoes, and cross-trades, unrestricted access to an non-discriminatory treatment in the use of ports,” said the Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development is to administer the closure of a third nuclear power station in eastern Europe; it will manage the decommissioning of Bohunice, in Slovakia, having signed similar agreements earlier this year for the plants in Kozloduy, Bulgaria and Ignalina, in Lithuania.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has fined 10 companies Euro 313.7 million for forming a cartel in the carbonless paper industry, the second largest such penalty imposed by Brussels. Arjo Wiggins Appleton PLC received the heaviest charge; Euro 184.27 million, with the rest being shared by Carrs Paper Ltd Euro 1.57 million, Papierfabrik August Koehler AG Euro 33.07 million, Zanders Feinpapiere AG Euro 29.76 million, Bolloré SA Euro 22.68 million, Mitsubishi HiTech Paper Bielefeld GmbH Euro 21.24 million, Torraspapel SA 14.17 million, Papeteries Mougeot SA Euro 3.64 million, Distribuidora Vizcaina de Papeles S.L.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A POLITICAL lifeline has been thrown to the EU’s Euro 3.6 billion, (Pounds 2.2 billion), Galileo project to set up a satellite-based global positioning system for European countries. After EU transport ministers appeared to have doomed the scheme by refusing some Euro 450 million, (Pounds 275 million), of development financing earlier this month, EU government leaders, meeting at the week-end in Belgium, said Galileo was of “strategic importance” adding that a financing decision should be taken by March next year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Intellectual Property Organisation’s digital copyright treaty is to come into force on March 6, next year, after Gabon became the 30th country to ratify its provisions, the minimum number required to make it international law.

This convention safeguards the rights of authors whose works are published on the Internet and in other digital media, protecting literary and artistic works, including online books, computer programs, music, art, and films.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT is a curious fact that whilst Britain has a lot more wind than Germany, it has significantly less wind power electricity generation. Also, why has a country blessed with as much sun as Greece, failed to develop solar panels as quickly as its fellow southern Mediterranean EU Member State Spain?…

From Alan Osborn
The fashionable term in setting up international energy projects these days is “flexible mechanisms” of which the best known is the trade in emission reductions, or carbon credits. The Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, which guides implementation of the Convention, laid down emission reduction targets for industrialised countries but allowed flexibility to meet them through the purchase of emission credits from poorer countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has authorised the Spanish government to grant aid up to a maximum of Euro 1.07 billion, (ESP 178 billion), to its coal industry for the past year, (2001). Brussels has accepted the particular problems facing Spain’s coal sector – with some mines that produce coal that is competitive with imports and others that are very costly – by allowing Madrid to finance operational aid as well as structural reforms.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has formally approved new EU-wide rules limiting the emissions of light vans, (of weight categories 1,305-1,760kg and more than 1,760kg), during cold starts. There are currently no European limits on this kind of pollution from these commercial vehicles.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the payment by the British government of Euro 80 million in additional state aid to boost the movement of freight through the Scottish port of Rosyth, in a bid to boost the country’s short sea shipping sector.…