Search Results for: European Union

BY KEITH NUTHALL
OFFICIALS in Brussels are considering how to avoid the creation of a legal void next July when the European Coal and Steel Community expires and the European Commission is supposed to transfer its Euro 1.6 billion assets and liabilities to the main European Union budget.…

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
WITH the insurance business being one of the most internationally sensitive of global economic sectors, it came as no surprise that the tragic events of September 11 had a dramatic effect on its fortunes, impacting seriously on the work of its regulators, especially in the European Union.…

ALAN OSBORN
The European Commission is bringing actions in the European Court of Justice against Sweden and Portugal for failure to adopt an EU directive on maritime safety. The legislation, which was approved by the EU council in 1999, provides for the regular safety examination of ships arriving at or leaving EU ports and calls on member states to co-operate fully in investigations of marine accidents and incidents.…

Keith Nuthall
CHANGES to a European Union directive, which forces employers to make provision for their employees of they become insolvent, have been accepted by the European Parliament; the proposals aim to extend the scope of the legislation to include subcontractors and the officially self-employed who work mostly for one company.…

KEITH NUTHALL
SOPHISTICATED controls on the access of the European road haulage industry to ecologically sensitive areas such as the Alps should be introduced, not simple traffic bans, a new European Environment Agency report has claimed.

‘Road Freight Transport and the Environment in Mountainous Areas’ points out that the inevitable concentration of road traffic through mountain barriers, such as the Alps or the Pyrenees, will have “a large impact on human health and the ecosystem, especially in Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FATHER Christmas would have been appalled; European Commission officials have been censured for enjoying the hospitality of a Russian game exporter, which they subsequently granted permission to send reindeer meat to the European Union.

Jacob Söderman, the European Ombudsman has played Santa, ruling that these Eurocrats compromised themselves during a fact-finding mission to Russia, by allowing Sweden-based company Norrfrys Ab to lay on lunch, hotel and flight reservations, temporary fax facilities, interpretation services and inspection cars.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BELGIAN government has been put on legal notice by the European Commission that it could be heavily fined by the European Court of Justice for its failure to abide by rulings made in 1999 opposing Belgium’s cargo sharing shipping deals with five African countries, namely Togo, Mali, Senegal, the Ivory Coast and its former colony, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.…

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.…

KEITH NUTHALL
INNOVATION is important in the provision of water services, whether that be to prevent the contamination of supplies by a return of this summer’s floods, or to source drinking water for arid areas where ground reserves are running dry.…