Search Results for: Spain

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPAIN has lost two cases at the European Court of Justice, where it had been seeking to overturn financial penalties imposed by the European Commission, which alleged that the anti-fraud checks and controls on agricultural subsidy programmes within the country were so weak, that the EU should not fully meet Spanish claims for European grants.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NEW international fishing deals are being developed by the European Union, which should allow fishing businesses to exploit grounds overseas while efforts are made to conserve stocking levels in Europe’s own territorial waters.

EU ministers have been asked to approve a deal negotiated by the European Commission with west Africa’s Guinea-Bissau, which will last until 2006.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has blocked the planned takeover by London-based CVC Capital Partners Group Ltd, (CVC), of Austrian man-made fibres manufacturer Lenzing AG. Because CVC already controls Acordis, Lenzing’s principal rival in Europe, and only rival in the United States, Brussels has ruled that a merged company would have a dominant position in a number of fibres markets, that could “reduce choice and lead to higher prices for customers and end consumers.”…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union competition Commissioner Mario Monti has announced that Brussels is to clamp down on special tax regimes affecting financial services in 11 Member States, which it claims are probably so lax, they constitute illegal state aid payments that could unfairly favour local companies.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE THREE important central European tobacco-growing countries of Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary will be able to claim production subsidies from Brussels when they join the European Union on the same basis as existing EU producers, European Commission officials have confirmed.…

KEITH NUTHALL
IN what could almost be said to be a Brussels tradition, the beginning of the long summer break at the European Commission – when officials disappear to the south of France to lap up the Mediterranean sun – is usually heralded by the announcement of a series of legal cases against Member States.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A STATE aid inquiry has been launched by the European Commission into concerns that restrictions on the payment of further state aid by the Spanish government to porcelain manufacturer Grupo de Empresas Álvarez, (GEA), in Vigo, Galicia, have been circumvented.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the payment by the Spanish government of subsidies of Euro 152 million to General Electric Plastics SL to set up a new polycarbonate factory in Cartagena. The new plant will cost Euro 630 million in total.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared a planned Spanish publishing joint venture between Germany’s Bertelsmann and Arnoldo Mondadori Editore SpA, of Italy, combining all the book publishing divisions and imprints in Spain and Latin America of Random House and Mondadori.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Parliament today, (Wednesday), approved the creation of a new European Aviation Safety Agency, (EASA), but extended the proposed legislation to include the setting up of a new independent authority similar to the US National Transportation Safety Board to investigate aircraft accidents and make recommendations.…