Search Results for: European Parliament

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered the repayment of part of an investment tax premium worth Euro 2 million, made out by the German government to sawmill company Klausner Nordic Timber GmbH, claiming that the subsidy broke EU state aid rules.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced a new Euro 149.2 million financing scheme under its Interreg programme, which can help local and regional authorities deal with problems in border areas. In this case, the Commission has identified the North Sea as a frontier zone, with money being made available until 2006 for transnational co-operation between coastal areas in Britain, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
EUROPEAN Commission officials believe that rapidly growing oil and gas shipments from Russia to the EU could in time pave the way for the adoption of the Euro as a petro-currency. Gerassimo Thomas, spokesman for the Commissioner in charge of the euro, Pedro Solbes, said that the Commission had considered pushing for the euro to be used globally to denominate the price of oil but “we can’t tell the market how to behave.”…

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?…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission’s plan to establish the satellite-based global positioning system Galileo has been dealt a heavy blow by the EU Council of Ministers (transport), which has blocked finance for the crucial development stage of the programme. The Euro 3.6 billion, (Pounds 2.2 billion), Galileo scheme is designed to allow transport operators such as air traffic control services pinpoint navigational positions and reduce dependence on the American GPS system.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A FINAL deal has at last been struck over the extension of the European Union’s working time rules to the road transport sector; a conciliation committee representing both the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers have reached agreement over the outstanding issues, notably that of self-employed drivers.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE NEW European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has now virtually completed its legislative journey through the EU institutions and is set to begin operations in the first half of next year though we’re still not sure where. Helsinki was the favourite for the seat until the Italian prime minister signor Berlusconi rudely pushed the claims of Parma, dismissing the Finns as “people who don’t know what prosciutto is.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Parliament this week (on December 11th) cleared the way for a European Food Safety Authority early next year with powers to set and monitor safety standards for the entire food chain “from farm to fork.”…

Keith Nuthall
POLITICAL difficulties blocking the agreement of common European Union invoicing rules, that would sanction the legitimacy of electronic billing for VAT purposes across the EU, have been cleared.

The EU Council of Ministers, (finance), has unanimously agreed in principle the proposed new invoicing directive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has voted for the oncoming 2002-6 Euro 16.2 billion EU Sixth Framework Programme on research to fund studies on “all aspects of food safety in the food chain from primary production to food processing.”…